Gipsy women with cabbage-nets and clothes-pegs to sell were more frequent callers for they had a camping-place only a mile away and no place was too poor to yield them a harvest. When a door was opened to them, if the housewife appeared to be under forty, they would ask in a wheedling voice: “Is your mother at home, my dear?” Then, when the position was explained, they would exclaim in astonished tones: “You don’t mean to tell me you be the mother? Look at that, now. I shouldn’t have taken you to be a day over twenty.”

No matter how often repeated, this compliment was swallowed whole, and made a favourable opening for a long conversation, in the course of which the wily Egyptian not only learned the full history of the woman’s own family, but also a good deal about those of her neighbours, which was duly noted for future use. Then would come a request for “handful of little ‘taters, or an onion or two for the pot,” and, if these were given, as they usually were, “My pretty lady” would be asked for an old shift of her own or an old shirt of her husband’s, or anything that the children might have left off, and, poverty-stricken though the hamlet was, a few worn-out garments would be secured to swell the size of the bundle which, afterwards, would be sold to the rag merchant.

Sometimes the gipsies would offer to tell fortunes; but this offer was always refused, not out of scepticism or lack of curiosity about the future, but because the necessary silver coin was not available. “No, thank ‘ee,” the women would say. “I don’t want nothink of that sort. My fortune’s already told.”

“Ah, my lady! you med think so; but them as has got children never knows. You be born, but you ain’t dead yet, an’ you may dress in silks and ride in your own carriage yet. You wait till that fine strappin’ boy o’ yourn gets rich. He won’t forget his mother, I’ll bet!” and after this free prognostication, they would trail off to the next house, leaving behind a scent as strong as a vixen’s.

The gipsies paid in entertainment for what they received. Their calls made a welcome break in the day. Those of the tramps only harrowed the feelings and left the depressed in spirit even more depressed.