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Ken Medernach
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That Old Goose - a tale of Alabama
One day, in the spring of 1940 a Gypsy wagon came down FM-118, this was maybe the strangest contraption I’ve ever seen; it was brightly colored; reds, blues, yellow in stripes, and then some flowered patterns around under the windows; and it was pulled by an ox and there must have been at least 9 or 10 people and a couple of dogs in, on and around the wagon as it trundled down the road.
Paw had always threatened all of us children that if we didn’t behave he was going to sell us to the gypsies; when I saw the wagon I did a quick inventory of recent “bad Deeds” to see if I could tell who was going to be leaving. I secretly hoped it would be Elroy.
However this was just a chance visit because there were no crops out here for the gypsies to work and nobody out here had enough money for the “gypsies” to try to cheat them out of and nobody could afford to have their barn painted. Paw said. “The gypsies do farm work and paint barns and houses for money, but there ain’t no money.”
They were lost! Well, that’s what they were saying anyhow. The leader, father, boss of this one wagon caravan asked if anybody would mind if they made a camp down by the creek? Paw said that he didn’t want them around but the land down by the creek didn’t belong to him so he couldn’t and wouldn’t complain.
There was a gypsy girl about my age and an older sister or aunt who wasn’t married and Uncle Robert, said that she was after him, but Paw said that she was after his money, ‘cept he didn’t have any.
After supper, Elroy, the twins and I snuck down to the gypsy camp, they were cooking their dinner in a big iron pot over an open fire. The “man” was a large man with black hair; moustache and dark deep set eyes with heavy eyebrows, he and all of them smelled like a combination of Mommie’s “Dusty Rose” cologne and fresh turned earth, it was a pleasant smell, sort of stimulating and sort of foreboding at the same time.
The ‘woman” I think she was the mother, was very pretty in a wild animal sort of way; kinda like one of them barn kittens that nobody ever petted but it grew up pretty and wild, well she looked like that ‘cept she was tall, and had the same dark hair, brows, eyes as the Poppa, but she didn’t have a moustache.
She was cooking some kind of stew and it smelled real good, they was using garlic and wild greens and wild onions, potatoes with some kind of animal , maybe it was a roadkill that they had found or maybe is was somebody’s , maybe one of our scrawny chickens.
The gypsy girl that was my age was a chubby little thing, she also had dark, black hair and heavy eyebrows, with real pretty light brown eyes, I had never seen eyes that color except on a hound dog, they was sort of that golden brown color that hounds have in the bright sun; even though she was a little chubby she had a “prettiness” about her and she could sing like a bird, they was sitting around the campfire , the “momma” was cooking and the “poppa” was playing this funny looking guitar that they called a mandolin, “grand poppa” as the girl ”Irena” called him was playing a tambourine and they was all singing in some unfamiliar tongue, the music was nice but we couldn’t recognize any of the words.
The gypsy woman, the mama, was a fortune teller, she came up to our house and offered to tell Mommie’s fortune, “Miz Lee, I offered to tell your husband’s future, but he said that I should come up here and tell yours. I can see by your face that there’s a long story in your hands” then she took Mommie’s hands in her hands looked up at the clouds and started reading, then she looked into the palms of Mommie’s hands and said, “I can see travel in your family, one of your boys” , then Mommie sent me away. The woman continued,” I see a man in uniform, it’s that boy, the same one who is traveling.” “Go on” Mommie said, “I need more, I need more time, it’s very dim, I need another nickel.” “Don’t you move” said Mommie as she ran into the house and dug a nickel and a few pennies out of her secret
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