Gypsies and Others

This happened many years ago when I was just a child. Dakota was still a frontier state and considered somewhat wild. The caravan of Gypsies came going from here to there. I never learned from whence they came or where was their great somewhere. They drove wagons pulled by horses and needed a place to park. They came in as the sun went down, to be settled before dark. Many farmers said Gypsies were thieves and would not let them stay. My Daddy with his tender heart could turn no one away. He gave them the big pasture, to park their horse drawn vans. It looked like a little city with the lights from the caravan. My daddy didn’t let his girls go near where the Gypsies park. My brothers went, had fortunes told and considered it a lark. They never stole from Daddy, he and the leader had a pact. And I don’t know if they were thieves. It wasn’t proven fact. And then there were the working men who walked our country lane. We called them tramps, but they were men who looked for work in vain. They came to work the harvests and with harvesting all done, they had no money to get home, They walked from sun to sun. Gypsies, tramps or common thieves, my mama fed then all. She said they were God’s children, or some angels come to call. She’d fix an over flowing plate and set them on the stoop. We never missed an egg or chicken from our big chicken coop. Written: April 2012