The memory of good deeds will ever stay, A cooling well amid the noonday heat, A scent of green boughs blown through narrow walls, A feel of rest when quiet evening falls. -Edwin Markham. CHAPTER II. A GIPSY CAMP. It was a hot July day in the following summer. The waves of heat were rising from the earth as if in contest to outdo the power of the sun. The cattle had sought the shade of friendly trees near the brook and were contentedly chewing their cuds and switching the troublesome flies. The stamp, stamp of the horses could be heard as, huddled together under a tree, they fought the flies, as if impatient that Providence should permit such pests. Now and then could be heard the clarion voice of the cock as he announced his supremacy in the barn-yard flock and the satisfied cackle of the hen as she rejoiced that she had given to the larder of the frugal housewife another contribution. Scarcely a leaf on the trees stirred and vegetation seemed by its drooping forms to be asking beseechingly for water to quench its deep thirst. Orchards were standing in their soldier-like rows, their boughs bending with fruit as yet green and unpalatable, ex cept here and there a Harvest tree whose ripened fruit seemed like so many summonses to the other trees to hasten in their ministry to the needs of men. The bees buzzing here and there were the only things of nature that did not appear to yield to the lethargy of the day. But it was different with the men of that time. Every day was by necessity one of toil. The spring and winter were times for clearing; ploughing and planting occupied the months of April and May; cultivating and hoeing June and early July, and July and August were the months of harvest. At the time of which I write, on every farm the harvesters were at work. With the long steady sweep of the scythe they moved across the fields, laying the hay in rows to dry and to be drawn into the barns or stacked on the meadows. Now and then they would rest under the trees that lined the edge of the meadow and quench their thirst from the jug of cool water which one of the girls had brought from the spring. Farmer Harrison and his sons were early at work. The grass fell before their advance as the savages before a trained army. Soon "We must finish this field and have it in the barn by night," said he, and by the middle of the forenoon the grass was cut. they were stirring it to hasten its drying and when that was finished it was ready to be piled into small cocks for hauling. When the sun lacked only an hour till noon a shout from one of the boys, "A gipsy wagon," turned all eyes toward the road. The laborers rested on their forks and watched the two covered wagons wind down the road until the drivers drew rein under the beech trees down by the spring that bubbled out by the roadside. This was a favorite camping place for the bands of solitary wanderers-the family tramps of the early days, that made their living by trading, begging, and, too often, by stealing. Their visits were times of peculiar interest. The children had been told that they sometimes stole little ones and their presence in the vicinity was, to such, a time of dread. The older ones kept a more careful watch upon their cribs of grain, their horses and harnesses, while these wagons hovered around. At noon that day while farmer Harrison and his family were at their dinner a girl |