One does not expect to meet anything out of the ordinary at West Farms to break the monotony where the big city fringes out. The old wooden shacks lean on the brick tenements, and one does not know whether the city invades the peaceful country or the country tries to catch up with the city. The outskirts of New York always brings to me the memory of a certain gentleman in silk hat and dress suit, but with the ends of his trousers in fringes and his shoes down at the heel. But—as a wise man once said—if one stands in one place long enough he sees the whole world pass before him as in a kaleidoscope. Thus also my frequent visits to West Farms were repaid when I saw one morning a gypsy tribe camped there.

Six wagons back of the road, a dozen horses neighing as they rubbed their noses on the shafts; a few tents with the flaps undulating windward; a few patches of color on the dress of the women. What a change it made in the dreary place, how stolid old West Farms was transformed when the curling smoke rose from the stovepipes of the camp wagons!

I expected to hear the usual noise attending camping; song and laughter, as only gypsies can sing and laugh.

It was a Roumanian gypsy tribe; one of many that have come over to this country in the last decade. But the people went about in the quietest possible way, which I knew was not at all their custom.

"Have they taken on manners?" I wondered.

Children of the neighborhood, and even grown-ups, began to assemble around the wagons. They stood at a distance. A mother warned her over-curious little boy:

"Don't go too near, dearie! Gypsies steal children."

As the woman spoke two little boys of the tribe climbed out from one of the camp wagons.

"Look at these white children!" exclaimed several people.

"Surely, stolen children."

The features of the children were distinctly of a Roumanian cast. A young gypsy woman followed the little ones to a tent.

From inside the wagon broke out a loud cry that was drowned in the wails and groanings of the people in every wagon and tent. The curious throng assembled about the camp now widened the circle. The gypsy litany of the dead was officiated.

In funeral rhythm the dead one's virtues were enumerated one by one, while others made incantations to chase the evil spirit.

"Leave us! If thou hast come through the chimney, leave through the chimney; and if through the door, evil one, leave the same way!"

"That thou be fed burning stones from now until eternity. That thy thirst be quenched only with the blood of thy own kin."

The same incantations were repeated for more than a half hour. They ceased abruptly, at the sound of a gong. The evil one had departed. Slowly, in single file, the gypsies descended the steps of the wagon and bowed very low westward, to the setting sun of an early autumn day, before going each one to his own tent.

The circle of the curious neighbors had widened very much when I approached an old gypsy and asked him who had died. He turned full face as he said:

"Our Chief, Yorga, our Chief. We would want to bury him under a tree near a river—but can we do as we please in this country? Tell me, stranger."

Like the drippings from a burning candle the tears fell from the man's eyes as he spoke to me.

On the wooden cross over Yorga's grave I have carved with my pen-knife the name of the dead one. In the fall of every year his tribe comes to the burial grounds, and each one cuts out a piece of cloth from his best garment and leaves it there as an offering to the dead Chief.

And the old gypsy told me: "A great man was Yorga. A king among men. His mother was killed by her father when Yorga was born, because she was the daughter of a great Roumanian boyar, and the child, fruit of a secret love, was the son of a gypsy. But the child was allowed to live, so beautiful was he.

"When Yorga was six years old, his grandfather, the old boyar, who had no other children, took the boy from the servant quarters into the house and called a special teacher to show him the letters. Later on Yorga was sent to school, and grew to be a learned man. All this time he did not know who his father was, and did not know that the hand he kissed good-night was the one that had murdered his mother.

"But there was a restless spirit in the boy; a spirit that made him roam from city to city whenever he had an opportunity. And thus he wandered all over the world. In search of learning, it was thought. Because no one realized the yearning of the gypsy in this stately youth.

"When Yorga was twenty-five his grandfather married him to another boyar's daughter. The following year the old man died, leaving his land and fortune to his grandson.

"Yorga was not happy in his marriage, not because the 'Conitza' was not a beautiful and good wife, not because she did not love him. Neither did his great fortune bring him happiness. It only tied him down to one place. Yorga began to go to the city once a month, and usually came home drunk. Then once every week. Later on he was seldom seen at home.

"The usurers first took away part of his land, then some of his oxen. His wife cried. One and then another child was born to them. Yorga made resolutions to better himself—cried and beat his heart and asked for forgiveness. A few days, a few weeks, or a few months of strenuous work, and then again back to the riotous life, to dissipation—and again home a repentant sinner. The land he owned shrunk daily. And the cattle he owned were either taken away or died in neglect—because 'the eye of the master fattens the cows.' And Yorga was careless. He had no ambition in life. He wanted nothing, he desired nothing. Even his carouses no longer had any distraction for him.

"Then one day our tribe camped near his grounds. At once he left wife, children, land and home, and came to live with us. For twenty years he guided our ways. There was no day that he thought not and labored not for us. He no longer thought of carouses and drinks. He bade us dress cleanly and live healthful lives, and we were respected wherever we came. It was he who guided us here over strange lands and great seas, and his wisdom is still guiding us."

"But," asked I, "what about the white children I saw in your tents?"

"They are of Yorga and his gypsy wife—and with them we have great trouble, for our ways are not their ways. Their souls are like the soul of Yorga's mother, the boyar's daughter. Some day they will run away and settle in some village—stolid, stale peasants."

"And what about Yorga's first children?" I asked again.

"They roam the world; are celebrated musicians. And the sun never finds them where the moon put them to sleep. They have the father's blood," the old man answered as he took with his bare fingers a piece of burning charcoal to light his freshly stuffed pipe.

"What's born of a cat runs after mice."