Cupid of Campion

“You see, Pete got into some trouble last spring in Ohio. He made some kind of a horse-trade and was sentenced to the workhouse for a month. He’d have been there longer, only Ben was sent down to wait for him and help him pay off his fine. And that’s how I came to be here.”

“What have you got to do with paying off Pete’s fine? What have you got to do with the workhouse?” asked Clarence indignantly.

“Nothing,” laughed Dora. “But if it hadn’t been for Pete’s being in the workhouse, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Tell me all about it, Dora.”

“I will – tomorrow. There’ll hardly be time tonight. You see, all these gypsies are on their way to join their own crowd somewhere further north in this State. We’ve been traveling up this way since last May – over four months.”

“How far have you traveled?”

“Ben told me that we’re about five hundred miles from where we started.”

“Five hundred miles! Let me think a minute.” Clarence began checking off on his fingers, murmuring at the same time under his breath.

“Why, good gracious!” he spoke out, presently. “You haven’t averaged much more than four miles a day.”

“Yes; but you ought to see the way we travel. We hardly ever go straight ahead. We generally zigzag. We cut across the country in one direction and then we cut across back again in another, always keeping near to the river. You see, we don’t like to meet people and we always dodge the towns and villages. I guess it’s partly my fault. They don’t want strangers to see me.”

“And I suppose they won’t want anybody to see me either,” said Clarence. “Say, did you ever try to break away?”

“I did in the beginning. Pete gave me an awful beating three different times; and I found it was no use.”

“Well, I’ll not stand for it. Why, it seems to me it would be easy to get away some time or other when nobody’s on the watch. Why, Dora, we’ve been talking here for fifteen minutes, and nobody’s been bothering about us in the least.”

“Don’t you believe it, Clarence. Those two women have been keeping their eyes on us ever since we shook hands. They take turn about, and the watching is going on night and day.”

“Is that so? By the way, I notice that boy helping those fellows at the boat is looking this way very often.”

“That’s Pete’s youngest son. He’s a bit quarrelsome. He’s generally pretty nice to me; but I think that’s because Ben gave him a shaking up one day when he was rude to me. His name is Ezra. I think he’s a sort of bully. I am afraid of him.”

“I don’t like bullies myself,” said Clarence.

“He’s watching you,” continued Dora. “He always gets angry and out of sorts when anybody is friendly to me. Those little gypsies all like me. But Ezra, when he notices them about me much, gives them a lot of trouble.”

“Maybe he’s jealous,” suggested the artless youth.

“Jealous? Why should he be jealous? He doesn’t care for me.”

“I can’t believe that,” said Clarence. “Anybody who meets you would be sure to like you, because you are a good fellow.”

Dora broke into so ringing a laugh that all the artists engaged upon the boat stopped their work to turn their gaze upon the two children.

“Oh, but you are the funniest boy,” she said.

“Thank you kindly; I do try my best. But come on, let’s finish up with the crowd before they get done with that boat.”

“That’s so. It’s so long since I’ve had anybody I could talk to that I can’t help wandering. Well, those two men with Pete are his oldest sons. They don’t seem to count much one way or the other. Three of those little children paddling in the water are Ben’s, and the other two belong to the oldest of Pete’s sons. His wife is dead, and Ben’s wife, that young woman, takes care of them. She’s real nice, and so is Ben. Ben is very kind to me. He treats me like a little princess. When I told him about wearing blue and white in honor of our Blessed Mother, he got me a lot of nice white dresses and three blue sashes, and his wife is just as kind. Her name is Dorcas. She helps me wash my things, and sews for me, and – you see that little tent over there?”

“It seems to me I do.”

“Well, that’s my tent. Ben got it for me. His wife sleeps with me every night; but she never comes in till I’ve said all my prayers.”

“All your prayers.”

“Yes, all of them.”

“I know only two,” observed Clarence regretfully, “and one of them, the Our Father, I’ve partly forgotten.”

“I’ll teach you all I know,” said Dora. “And,” she continued, “when I’ve finished my prayers, I sing a little hymn to the Blessed Virgin. Then she knows that I’m going to bed and she comes in. Isn’t that nice?”

“I don’t know,” returned Clarence, “I haven’t heard you sing yet.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that. I mean her staying out and leaving me to myself till I go to bed. I call that – I call that – delicate.”

“I can sing some myself,” said Clarence, more affected by Dora’s declaration than he cared to show.

“Oh, can you? We’ll get up some duets.”

“The kids at my school used to like to hear me sing, but perhaps it was because they didn’t know any better. But you didn’t tell me anything about that old woman who raised such a fuss about seeing a cross on my hand. What was the matter with her?”

“She hates Catholics. I don’t know what to make of her. She acts as if she would like to poison me because I’m a Catholic. She thinks you’re one.”

“But I’m not.”

“What are you, Clarence?”

“I’m nothing. My father said I was to wait till I was fourteen before I thought anything about religion.”

Suddenly Clarence stopped. The vision of his parents presented itself, – their grief, their bewilderment, their perplexity. His eyes filled with tears.

“What’s the matter, Clarence?”

The boy had not attended boarding school for nothing. With an heroic effort he mastered himself.

“Nothing. Something caught me in the throat. By the way, I’m fourteen now; have been since last June. It’s time for me to get busy and fix up the religious question.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Dora, turning shining eyes and the glowing face of enthusiasm upon her new friend. “I’ll instruct you in the Catholic faith myself.”

“But I don’t intend to be a Catholic. It isn’t up-to-date. There’s too much superstition in it.”

Dora’s eyes opened to their widest.

“Clarence, how can you talk so? I’m shocked. You need instruction badly, and I’m going to begin tomorrow.”

They certainly at this moment looked like life-long friends. Dora, once the question of religion had been raised, had become intensely earnest. Master Ezra, the boat repairing being fairly completed, had drawn near enough to see their faces without being able to catch the exact import of their words. He was plainly disquieted. Tiptoeing his way behind the trees he stole behind the two controversialists, and seizing the end of the log on which they were sitting, gave it a shove and a kick, with the result that the two fell sprawling to the earth.

Clarence was up at once, and with a courtly air caught the girl’s hand and helped her to her feet.