“Come, Tom—do.”

“Do what?”

“You know as well as I do.”

“What did you observe?”

“Tom Breynton!”

“That’s my name.”

“Will you, or will you not, come down to the pond and have a row?”

“Let’s hear you tease a little.”

“Catch me! If you won’t come for a civil request, I won’t tease for it.”

“Very good,” said Tom, laying aside his Euclid; “I like your spunk. Rather think I’ll go.”

Tom tossed on his cap and was ready. Gypsy hurried away to array herself in the complication of garments necessary to the feminine adventurer, if she so much as crosses the yard; a continual mystery of Providence, was this little necessity to Gypsy, and one against which she lived in a state of incessant rebellion. It was provoking enough to stand there in her room, tugging and hurrying till she was red in the face, over a pair of utterly heartless and unimpressible rubbers, that absolutely refused to slip over the heel of her boot, and to see Tom through the window, with his hands in his pocket, ready, waiting, and impatient, alternately whistling and calling for her.

“I never did!” said Gypsy, in no very gentle tone.

“Hur—ry up!” called Tom, coolly.

“These old rubbers!” said Gypsy.

“What’s the matter?” asked her mother, stopping at the door.

“It’s enough to try the patience of a saint!” said Gypsy, emphatically, holding out her foot.

“Perhaps I can help you,” said Mrs. Breynton, stooping down. “Why, Gypsy! your boots are wet through; of course the rubbers won’t go on.”

“I didn’t suppose that would make any difference,” said Gypsy, looking rather foolish. “I got them wet this morning, down at the swamp. I thought they were dry, though: I sat with my feet in the oven until Patty drove me off. She said I was in the bread.”

“You will have to put on your best boots,” said her mother.

“Oh, Tom!” called Gypsy, in despair, as the shrillest of all shrill whistles came up through the window. “Everything’s in a jumble! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She changed her boots, tossed on her turban, whisked on her sack, and began to fasten it with a jerk, when off came the button at the throat, and rolled maliciously quite out of sight under the bed.

“There!” said Gypsy.

“Can’t wait!” shouted Tom.

“I mended that sack,” said Gypsy, “only yesterday afternoon. I call it too bad, when a body’s trying to keep their things in order, and do up all their mending, that things have to act so!”

“I think you have been trying to be orderly,” said her mother, helping her to pin the offending sack about the throat, for there was no time now to restore the wandering button. “I have noticed a great improvement in you; but there’s one thing wanting yet, that would have kept the button in its place, and had the boots properly taken off and dried at the right time.”

“What’s that?” asked Gypsy, in a great hurry to go.

“A little more thoroughness, Gypsy.”

This bit of a lesson, like most of Mrs. Breynton’s moral teachings, was enforced with a little soft kiss on Gypsy’s forehead, and a smile that was as unlike a sermon as smile could be.

Gypsy gave two thoughts to it, while she jumped down stairs three steps at a time; then, it must be confessed, she forgot it entirely, in the sight of Tom coolly walking off down the lane without her. But words that Mrs. Breynton said with a kiss did not slip away from Gypsy’s memory “for good an a’,” as easily as that. She had her own little places and times of private meditation, when such things came up to her like faithful angels, that are always ready to speak, if you give them the chance.

Tom was still in sight, among the hazel-nut bushes and budding grape-vines of the lane, and Gypsy ran swiftly after him. She was fleet of foot as a young gazelle, and soon overtook him. She had just stopped, panting, by his side, and was proceeding to make some remarks which she thought his conduct richly deserved, when the sound of some little trotting feet behind them attracted their attention.

“Why, Winnie Breynton!” said Gypsy.

“Where are you going?” asked Tom, turning round.

“Oh, nowheres in particular,” said Winnie, with an absent air.

“Well, you may just turn round and go there, then,” said Tom. “We don’t want any little boys with us this afternoon.”

“Little boys!” said Winnie, with a terrible look; “I’m five years old, sir. I can button my own jacket, and I’ve got a snowshovel!”

Tom walked rapidly on, and Gypsy with him. A moment’s reflection seemed to convince Winnie that his company was not wanted, and he disappeared among the hazel nut bushes.

Gypsy and Tom were fast walkers, and they reached the pond in a marvellously short time. This pond was about a half-mile from the house, just at the foot of a hill which went by the name of Kleiner Berg—a German word meaning little mountain. There were many of these elevations all along the valley in which Yorkbury was situated. They seemed to be a sort of stepping-stones to the great, snow-crowned mountains, that towered sharply beyond. The pond that nestled in among the trees at the foot of the Kleiner Berg was called the Kleiner Berg Basin. It was a beautiful sheet of water, small and still and sheltered, and a great resort of pleasure-seekers because of the clouds of white and golden lilies that floated over it in the hot summer months. Mr. Breynton owned a boat there, which was kept locked to a tiny wharf under the trees, and was very often used by the children, although Tom declared it was no better to fish in than a wash-tub; as a Vermont boy, used to the trout-brooks up among the mountains, would be likely to think.

“What’s that?” asked Gypsy, as they neared the wharf.

“Looks as much like a little green monkey as anything,” said Tom, making a tube of his hands to look through. “It’s in the boat, whatever it is.”

“It’s a green-and-white gingham monkey,” said Gypsy, suddenly, “with a belt, and brown pants, and a cap on wrong side before.”

“The little——, he may just walk home anyhow,” observed Tom, in his autocratic style. “He ought to be taught better than to come where older people are, especially if they don’t want him.”

“I suppose he likes to have a boat-ride as well as we do,” suggested Gypsy.

“Winthrop!” called Tom, severely.

Winnie’s chin was on his little fat hand, and Winnie’s eyes were fixed upon the water, and Winnie was altogether too deeply absorbed in meditation to deign a reply.

“Winnie, where did you come from?”

“Oh!” said Winnie, looking up, carelessly; “that you?”

“How did you get down here, I’d like to know?” said Gypsy.

Winnie regarded her impressively, as if to signify that his principles of action were his own until they were made public, and when they were made public she might have them.

“You may just get out of that boat,” said Tom, rather crossly for him. Winnie hinted, as if it were quite an accidental remark, that he had no intention of doing so. He furthermore observed that he would be happy to take them to row. “Father said whoever took the boat first was to have it.”

Tom replied by taking him up in one hand, twisting him over his shoulder, and landing him upon the grass. At this Winnie, as characteristic in his wrath as in his dignity, threw himself flat, and began to scream after his usual musical fashion.

“It’s too bad!” said Gypsy. “Let him go, Tom—do.”

“He should have stayed where he was told to,” argued Tom, who, like most boys of his age, had a sufficiently just estimate of the importance of his own authority, and who would sometimes do a very selfish thing under the impression that it was his duty to family and state, as an order-loving individual and citizen.

“I know it isn’t so pleasant to have him,” said Gypsy, “but it does make him so dreadfully happy.”

That was the best of Gypsy;—she was as generous a child as poor, fallen children of Adam are apt to be; as quick to do right as she was to do wrong, and much given to this fancy of seeing people “dreadfully happy.” I have said that people loved Gypsy. I am inclined to think that herein lay the secret of it.

Then Gypsy never “preached.” If she happened to be right, and another person wrong, she never put on superior airs, and tried to patronize them into becoming as good as she was. She made her suggestions in such a straightforward, matter-of-fact way, as if of course you thought so too, and she was only agreeing with you; and was apt to make them so merrily withal, that there was no resisting her.

Therefore Tom, while pretending to carry his point, really yielded to the influence of Gypsy’s kind feeling, in saying,—

“On the whole, Winnie, I’ve come to the conclusion to take you, on condition that you always do as I tell you in future. And if you don’t stop crying this minute, you sha’n’t go.”

This rather ungracious consent was sufficient to dry Winnie’s tears and silence Winnie’s lungs, and the three seated themselves in the little boat, and started off in high spirits. It was a light, pretty boat, painted in bright colors, and christened The Dipper, it being an appropriate and respectful title for a boat on the Kleiner Berg Basin. Moreover, the air was as sweet as a May-flower, and as warm as sunshine; there was a soft, blue sky with clouds of silver like stately ships sailing over it, and such a shimmering, bright photograph of it in the water; then Tom was so pleasant, and rowed so fast, and let Gypsy help, and she could keep time with him, and the spray dashed up like silver-dust about the oars, and the bees were humming among the buds on the trees, and the blue dragon-flies, that skipped from ripple to ripple, seemed to be having such a holiday. Altogether, Gypsy felt like saying, with famous little Prudy,—

“Oh, I’m so glad there happened to be a world, and God made me!”

After a while Tom laid down his oars, and they floated idly back and forth among the lily-stems and the soft, purple shadows of the maple-boughs, from which the perfumed scarlet blossoms dropped like coral into the water. Tom took off his cap, and leaned lazily against the side of the boat; Winnie, interested in making a series of remarkable faces at himself in the water, for a wonder sat still, and Gypsy lay down across two seats, with her face turned up watching the sky. It was very pleasant, and no one seemed inclined to talk.

“I wish I were a cloud,” said Gypsy, suddenly, after a long silence. “A little white cloud, with a silver fringe, and not have anything to do but float round all day in the sunshine,—no lessons nor torn dresses nor hateful old sewing to do.”

“S‘posin’ it thunder-stormed,” suggested Winnie. “You might get striked.”

“That would be fun,” said Gypsy, laughing. “I always wanted to see where the lightning came from.”

“Supposing there came a wind, and blew you away,” suggested Tom, sleepily.

“I never thought of that,” said Gypsy. “I guess I’d rather do the sewing.”

Presently a little scarlet maple-blossom floated out on the wind, and dropped right into Gypsy’s mouth (which most unpoetically happened to be open).

“Just think,” said Gypsy, whose thoughts seemed to have taken a metaphysical turn, “of being a little red flower, that dies and drops into the water, and there’s never any fruit nor anything,—I wonder what it was made for.”

“Perhaps just to make you ask that question,” answered Tom; and there was a great deal more in the answer than Tom himself supposed. This was every solitary word that was said on that boat-ride. A little is so much better than much, sometimes, and goes a great deal further.

It seemed to Gypsy the pleasantest boat-ride she had ever taken; but Tom became tired of it before she did, and went up to the house, carrying Winnie with him. Gypsy stayed a little while to row by herself.

“Be sure you lock the boat when you come up,” called Tom, in starting.

“Oh yes,” said Gypsy, “I always do.”

“Did you bring up the oars?” asked Tom, at supper.

“Yes, they’re in the barn. I do sometimes remember things, Mr. Tom.”

“Did you——,” began Tom, again.

But Winnie just then upset the entire contents of his silver mug of milk exactly into Tom’s lap, and as this was the fourth time the young gentleman had done that very thing, within three days, Tom’s sentence was broken off for another of a more agitated nature.

That night Tom had a dream.

He thought the house was a haunted castle—(he had, I am sorry to say, been reading novels in study hours), and that the ghost of old Baron Somebody who had defrauded the beautiful Lady Somebody-else, of Kleiner Berg Basin and the Dipper, in which it was supposed Mrs. Surly had secreted a blind kitten, which it was somehow or other imperatively necessary should be drowned, for the well-being of the beautiful and unfortunate heiress,—that the ghost of this atrocious Baron was going down stairs, with white silk stockings on his feet and a tin pan on his head.

At this crisis Tom awoke, with a jump, and heard, or thought he heard, a slight creaking noise in the entry. Winnie’s cat, of course; or the wind rattling the blinds;—nevertheless, Tom went to his door, and looked out. He was exceedingly sleepy, and the entry was exceedingly dark, and, though he had not a breath of faith in ghosts, not he,—was there ever a boy who had?—and though he considered such persons, as had, as candidates for the State Idiot Asylum, yet it must be confessed that even Tom was possessed of an imagination, and this imagination certainly, for an instant, deluded him into the belief that a dim figure was flitting down stairs.

“Who’s there?” said Tom, rather faintly.

There was no reply. A curious sound, like the lifting of a distant latch by phantom fingers, fell upon his ear,—then all was still.

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Tom. Nevertheless, Tom went to the head of the stairs, and looked down; went to the foot of the stairs, and looked around. The doors were all closed as they had been left for the night. Nothing was to be seen; nothing was to be heard.

“Curious mental delusions one will have when one is sleepy,” said Tom, and went back to bed, where, the reader is confidentially informed, he lay for fifteen entire minutes with his eyes wide open, speculating on the proportion of authenticated ghost-stories;—to be sure, there had been some; it was, perhaps, foolish to deny as much as that.

After which, he slept the rest of the night as soundly as young people of sixteen, who are well and happy, are apt to sleep.

That night, also, Gypsy had a dream.

She dreamed that Miss Melville sailed in through the window on an oar, which she paddled through the air with a parasol, and told her that her (Gypsy’s) father had been hung upon a lamp-post by Senator Sumner, for advocating the coercion of the seceded States, and that Tom had set Winnie afloat on the Kleiner Berg Basin, in a milk-pitcher. Winnie had tipped over, and was in imminent danger of drowning, if indeed he were not past hope already, and Tom sat up in the maple-tree, laughing at him.

Her mother appeared to have enlisted in the Union army, and, her father being detained in that characteristic manner by Mr. Sumner, there was evidently nothing to be done but for Gypsy to go to Winnie’s relief. This she hastened to do with all possible speed. She dressed herself under a remarkable sense of not being able to find any buttons, and of getting all her sleeves upon the wrong arm. She put on her rubber-boots, because it took so long to lace up her boots. Her stockings she wore upon her arms. The reason appeared to be, that she might not get her hands wet in pulling Winnie out. She stopped to put on her sack, her turban, and her blue veil. She also spent considerable time in commendable efforts to pin on a lace collar which utterly refused to be pinned, and to fasten at her throat a velvet bow that kept turning into a little green snake, and twisting round her fingers.

When at length she was fairly ready, she left the house softly, under the impression that Tom (who appeared to have the remarkable capacity of being in the house and down in the maple-trees at one and the same time) would stop her if he heard her.

She ran down the lane and over the fields and into the woods, where the Kleiner Berg rose darkly in front of her; so, at last, to the Basin, which rippled and washed on its shore, and tossed up at her feet—an empty milk-pitcher!

A horrible fear seized her. She had come too late. Winnie was drowned. It was all owing to that lace collar.

She sprang into the boat; she floated away; she peered down into the dark water. But Tom laughed in the maple-tree; and there was no sign nor sound of Winnie.

She cried out with a loud cry, and awoke. She lifted up her head, and saw——