One afternoon Gypsy was coming home from the post-office. It was a rare June day. The great soft shadows fell and faded on the mountains, and the air was sweet with the breath of a hundred fields where crimson clovers nodded in the sleepy wind. It seemed to Gypsy that she had never seen such mellow sunlight, or skies so pure and blue; that no birds ever sung such songs in the elm-trees, and never were butterflies so golden and brown and beautiful as those which fluttered drowsily over the tiny roadside clovers. The thought came to her like a little sudden heart-throb, that thrilled her through and through, that this world was a very great world, and very beautiful,—it seemed so alive and happy, from the arch of the blazing sky down to the blossoms of the purple weeds that hid in the grass. She wondered that she had never thought of it before. How many millions of people were enjoying this wonderful day! What a great thing it was to live in such a world, where everything was so beautiful and useful and happy! The very fact that she was alive in it made her so glad. She felt as if she would like to go off on the rocks somewhere, and shout and jump and sing.

As she walked slowly along past the stores and the crowded tenement-houses, swinging her little letter-basket on her arm, and dreaming away with her great brown eyes, as such young eyes will always dream upon a summer’s day, there suddenly struck upon that happy thought of hers a mournful sound.

It was a human groan.

It grated on Gypsy’s musing, as a file grates upon smooth marble; she started, and looked up. The sound came from an open window directly over her head. What could anybody be groaning about such a day as this? Gypsy felt a momentary impatience with the mournful sound; then a sudden curiosity to know what it meant. A door happened to be open near her, and she walked right in, without a second thought, as was the fashion in which Gypsy usually did things. A pair of steep stairs led up from the bit of an entry, and a quantity of children, whose faces and hands were decidedly the worse for wear, were playing on them.

“How do you do?” said Gypsy. The children stared.

“Who lives here?” asked Gypsy, again. The children put their fingers in their mouths.

“Who is that groaning so?” persisted Gypsy, repressing a strong desire to box their ears. The children crawled a little further up-stairs, and peered at her from between their locks of shaggy hair, as if they considered her a species of burglar. At this moment a side door opened, and a red-faced woman, who was wiping her hands on her apron, put her head out into the entry, and asked, in rather a surly tone, what was wanted.

“Who is that groaning?” repeated Gypsy.

“Oh, that’s nobody but Grandmother Littlejohn,” said the woman, with a laugh, “she’s always groanin’clock.”

“But what does she groan for?” insisted Gypsy, her curiosity nowise diminished to see a person who could be “always groanin’clock,” through not only one, but many, of such golden summer days.

“Oh, I s’pose she’s got reason enough, for the matter of that,” said the woman, carelessly; “she’s broke a bone,—though she do make a terrible fuss over it, and very onobligin’clock it is to the neighbors as has the lookin’clock after of her.”

“Broken a bone! Poor thing, I’m going right up to see her!” said Gypsy, whose compassion was rising fast.

“Good luck to you!” said the woman, with a laugh Gypsy did not like very much. It only strengthened her resolution, however, and she ran up the narrow stairs scattering the children right and left.

Several other untidy-looking women opened doors and peered out at her as she went by; but no one else spoke to her. Guided by the sound of the groans, which came at regular intervals like long breaths, she went up a second flight of stairs, more narrow and more dark than the first, and turned into a little low room, the door of which stood open.

“Who’s there!” called a fretful voice from inside.

“I,” said Gypsy; “may I come in?”

“I don’t know who you be,” said the voice, “but you may come ’long ef you want to.”

Gypsy accepted the somewhat dubious invitation. The room was in sad disorder, and very dusty. An old yellow cat sat blinking at a sunbeam, and an old, yellow, wizened woman lay upon the bed. Her forehead was all drawn and knotted with pain, and her mouth looked just like her voice—fretful and sharp. She turned her head slowly, as Gypsy entered, but otherwise she did not alter her position; as if it were one which she could not change without pain.

“Good afternoon,” said Gypsy, feeling a little embarrassed, and not knowing exactly what to say, now she was up there.

“Good arternoon,” said Grandmother Littlejohn, with a groan.

“I heard you groan out in the street,” said Gypsy, rushing to the point at once; “I came up to see what was the matter.”

“Matter?” said the old woman sharply, “I fell down stairs and broke my ankle, that’s the matter, an’clock I wonder the whole town hain’t heerd me holler,—I can’t sleep day nor night with the pain, an’clock it’s matter enough, I think.”

“I’m real sorry,” said Gypsy.

Mrs. Littlejohn broke into a fresh spasm of groaning at this, and seemed to be in such suffering, that it made Gypsy turn pale to hear her.

“Haven’t you had a doctor?” she asked, compassionately.

“Laws yes,” said the old woman. “Had a doctor! I guess I have, a young fellar who said he was representative from somewhere from Medical Profession, seems to me it war, but I never heerd on’t, wharever it is, an’clock he with his whiskers only half growed, an’clock puttin’clock of my foot into a wooden box, an’clock murderin’clock of me—I gave him a piece of my mind, and he hain’t come nigh me since, and I won’t have him agin noways.”

“But they always splinter broken limbs,” said Gypsy.

“Splinters?” cried the old woman; “I tell ye I fell down stairs! I didn’t get no splinters in.”

Gypsy concluded to suppress her surgical information.

“Who takes care of you?” she asked, suddenly.

“Nobody! I don’t want nobody takin’clock care of me when I ain’t shut up in a box on the bed, an’clock now I am, the neighbors is shy enough of troublin’clock themselves about me, an’clock talks of the work-house. I’ll starve fust!”

“Who gives you your dinners and suppers?” asked Gypsy, beginning to think Grandmother Littlejohn was a very ill-treated woman.

“It’s little enough I gets,” said the old woman, groaning afresh; “they brings me up a cup of cold tea when they feels like it, and crusts of bread, and I with no teeth to eat ’em. I hain’t had a mouthful of dinner this day, and that’s the truth, now!”

“No dinner,” cried Gypsy. “Why, how sorry I am for you! I’ll go right home and get you some, and tell my mother. She’ll take care of you—she always does take care of everybody.”

“You’re a pretty little gal,” said Mrs. Littlejohn, with a sigh; “an’clock I hope you’ll be rewarded for botherin’clock yourself about a poor old woman like me. Does your ma use white sugar? I like white sugar in my tea.”

“Oh yes,” said Gypsy, rather pleased than otherwise to be called a “pretty little gal.” “Oh yes; we have a whole barrel full. You can have some just as well as not; I’ll bring you down a pound or so, and I have five dollars at home that you might have. What would you like to have me get for you?”

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Littlejohn; “what a angel of mercy to the poor and afflicted you be! I should like some fresh salmon and green peas, now, if I could get ’em.”

“Very well,” said Gypsy; “I’ll hurry home and see about it.”

Accordingly she left the old woman groaning out her thanks, and went down the narrow stairs, and into the street.

She ran all the way home, and rushed into the parlor where her mother was sitting quietly sewing. She looked up as the door burst open, and Gypsy swept in like a little hurricane, her turban hanging down her neck, her hair loose and flying about an eager face that was all on fire with its warm crimson color and twinkling eyes.

“Why Gypsy!”

“Oh, mother, such an old woman—such a poor old woman! groaning right out in the street—I mean, I was out in the street, and heard her groan up two flights of the crookedest stairs, and she broke her ankle, and the neighbors won’t give her anything to eat, unless she goes to the poor-house and starves, and she hasn’t had any dinner, and——”

“Wait a minute, Gypsy; what does all this mean?”

“Why, she fell down those horrid stairs and broke her ankle, and wants some salmon and green peas, and I’m going to give her my five dollars, and——Oh, white sugar, some white sugar for her tea. I never heard anybody groan so, in all my life!”

Mrs. Breynton laid down her work, and laughed.

“Why, mother!” said Gypsy, reddening, “I don’t see what there is to laugh at!”

“My dear Gypsy, you would laugh if you had heard your own story. The most I can make out of it is, that a little girl who is so excited she hardly knows what she is talking about, has seen an old woman who has been begging for fresh salmon.”

“And broken her ankle, and is starving,” began Gypsy.

“Stop a minute,” interrupted Mrs. Breynton, gently. “Sit down and take off your things, and when you get rested tell me the story quietly and slowly, and then we will see what is to be done for your old woman.”

Gypsy, very reluctantly, obeyed. It seemed to her incredible that any one could be so quiet and composed as her mother was, when there was an old woman in town who had had no dinner. However, she sat still and fanned herself, and when she was rested, she managed to tell her story in as connected and rational manner, and with as few comments and exclamations of her own, as Gypsy was capable of getting along with, in any narration.

“Very well,” said her mother, when it was finished; “I begin to understand things better. Let me see: in the first place, you felt so sorry for the old woman, that you went alone into a strange house, among a sort of people you knew nothing about, and without stopping to think whether I should be willing to have you—wasn’t that so?”

“Yes’m,” said Gypsy, hanging her head a little; “I didn’t think—she did groan so.”

“Then Mrs. Littlejohn seems to like to complain, it strikes me.”

“Complain!” said Gypsy, indignantly.

“Yes, a little. However, she might have worse faults. The most remarkable thing about her seems to be her modest request for salmon and white sugar. You propose giving them to her?”

“Why, yes’m,” said Gypsy, promptly. “She’s in such dreadful pain. When I sprained my wrist, you gave me nice things to eat.”

“But it wouldn’t follow that I should give Mrs. Littlejohn the same,” said Mrs. Breynton, gently. “Salmon and white sugar are expensive luxuries. I might be able to do something to help Mrs. Littlejohn, but I might not be able to afford to take her down the two or three pounds of sugar you promised her, nor to spend several dollars on fresh salmon—a delicacy which we have had on our own table but once this season. Besides, there are thirty or forty sick people in town, probably, who are as poor and as much in need of assistance as this one old woman. You see, don’t you, that I could not give salmon and peas and white sugar to them all, and it would be unwise in me to spend all my money on one, when I might divide it, and help several people.”

“But there’s my five dollars,” said Gypsy, only half convinced.

“Very well, supposing I were to let you give it all away to Mrs. Littlejohn, even if she were the most worthy and needy person that could be found in town, what then? It is all gone. You have nothing more to give. The next week a poor little girl who has no hat, and can’t go to Sunday-school, excites your sympathy, and you would be glad to give something toward buying her a hat—you have not a copper. You go to Monthly Concert, and want to drop something into the contribution box, but Mrs. Littlejohn has eaten up what you might have given. You want to do something for the poor freedmen, who are coming into our armies; you cannot do it, for you have nothing to give.”

“Well,” said Gypsy, with a ludicrous expression of conviction and discomfiture, “I suppose so; I didn’t think.”

“Didn’t think!—the old enemy, Gypsy. And now that I have pointed out the little mistakes you made this afternoon, I want to tell you, Gypsy, how pleased I am that you were so quick to feel sorry for the old woman, and so ready to be generous with your own money and help. I would rather have you fail a dozen times on the unselfish side, than to have you careless and heartless towards the people God has made poor, and in suffering——there! I have given you a long sermon. Do you think mother is always scolding?”

Mrs. Breynton drew her into her arms, and gave her one of those little soft kisses on the forehead, that Gypsy liked so much. “I will go down and see the old woman after supper,” she said, then.

“Couldn’t you go before?” suggested Gypsy. “She said she hadn’t had any dinner.”

“We can’t do things in too much of a hurry; not even our charities,” said Mrs. Breynton, smiling. “I have some work which I cannot leave now, and I have little doubt the woman had some dinner. The poor are almost always very kind neighbors to each other. I will be there early enough to take her some supper.”

So Gypsy was comforted for Mrs. Littlejohn.

It was nearly dark when Mrs. Breynton came up from the village, with her pleasant smile, and her little basket that half Yorkbury knew so well by sight, for the biscuit and the jellies, the blanc-mange, and the dried beef and the cookies, that it brought to so many sick-beds. Gypsy had been watching for her impatiently, and ran down to the gate to meet her.

“Well, did you find her?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What do you think of her?” asked Gypsy, a little puzzled by her mother’s expression.

“She is a good deal of a scold, and something of a sufferer,” said Mrs. Breynton. Gypsy’s face fell, and they walked up to the house in silence.

“Then you’re not going to do anything for her?” asked Gypsy, at length, in a disappointed tone.

“Oh, yes. She needs help. She can’t be moved to the poor-house now, and, besides, is likely to get well before long, if she is properly taken care of. I gave her her supper, and have arranged with one or two of the ladies to send her meals for a few days, till we see how she is, and what had better be done. I take care of her to-morrow, and Mrs. Rowe takes her the next day.”

“Good!” said Gypsy, brightening; “and I may take her down the things, mayn’t I, mother?”

“If you want to.”

Gypsy went to bed as happy as a queen.

The next morning she rose early, to be sure to be in time to take Mrs. Littlejohn’s breakfast; and was disappointed enough, when her mother thought it best she should wait till she had eaten her own. However, on the strength of the remembrance of her mother’s tried and proved wisdom, on certain other little occasions, she submitted with a good grace.

She carried Mrs. Littlejohn a very good breakfast of griddle-cakes and fish-balls and sweet white bread, and was somewhat taken aback to find that the old woman received it rather curtly, and asked after the salmon.

It was very warm at noon. When she carried the dinner, the walk was long and wearisome, and Mrs. Littlejohn neglected to call her an angel of mercy, and it must be confessed Gypsy’s enthusiasm diminished perceptibly.

That evening Mr. and Mrs. Breynton were out to tea, and Tom was off fishing. Mrs. Breynton left Mrs. Littlejohn’s supper in a basket on the shelf, and told Gypsy where it was. Gypsy had been having a great frolic in the fresh hay with Sarah Rowe, and came in late. No one but Winnie was there. She ate her supper in a great hurry, and went out again. Patty saw her from the window, and concluded she had gone to Mrs. Littlejohn’s.

That night, about eleven o’clock, some one knocked at Mrs. Breynton’s door, and woke her up.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Oh, mother Breynton!” said a doleful voice; “what do you suppose I’ve done now?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Breynton, with a resigned sigh.

“I hope she hasn’t been walking in her sleep again,” said Mr. Breynton, nervously.

“Forgotten Mrs. Littlejohn’s supper,” said the doleful voice through the key-hole.

“Why, Gypsy!”

“I know it,” said Gypsy, humbly. “Couldn’t I dress and run down?”

“Why, no indeed! it can’t be helped now. Run back to bed.”

“Just like Gypsy, for all the world!” said Tom, the next morning. “Always so quick and generous, and sorry for people, and ready to do, and you can depend on her just about as much as you could on a brisk west wind!”