Читать книгу I've been a Gipsying. Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans онлайн

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I knew many of the gipsies, and, contrary to what I had expected, I did not receive one cross look. The eldest son of a gipsy, named Pether, to whom I shall refer later on, took me into his tea, gingerbeer, and pop tent; and nothing would satisfy him but that I must have some gingerbeer and cake, and while I was eating he handed me his fat baby to look at. It certainly bade fair to become a bigger man than General Tom Thumb. I touched the baby’s cheek and put a small coin in its tiny hand. I also spoke a word of genuine praise to the young gipsy mother on account of the good start she was making, and afterwards I shook hands with the gipsy pair and bade them good-bye. To Pether’s credit be it said that, although he owns horses, swings, cocoa-nuts, &c., he never employs them on Sundays. His gipsy father had told him more than once that “there is no good got by it. I have noticed it more than once, what’s got by cocoa-nuts, swings, and horses on Sunday, the devil fetches before dinner on Monday.”