Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/200

184 A glance inside was enough for the girls. There was nothing particularly romantic or entertaining to be seen,  and there was a decidedly disagreeable odor in the air. For on the little cook-stove there was a pan of onions and  fish frying, and the ventilation of the place was not such  as to make it, even when nothing was cooking, agreeable  to linger in. As to the furnishing, there was little unusual. A fur rug, such as was spread at the entrance to the tent, would probably not be found in most kitchens;  nor a cot-bed piled high with blankets and pillows. But the long wooden unpainted dining-table, with an assortment of heavy crockery, and a few tin plates, was similar  to dining-tables that Nora has seen in one or two North  End houses that she had visited. There was a little child of two asleep on a cushion near the stove, and Nora  thought that he must find the room very uncomfortable;  but the mother only shook her head when Nora expressed  herself, adding, “He likes it hot.” This woman not  only spoke good English, but she seemed more willing  than the fortune-teller to tell the girls about the life  and habits of their tribe.

She explained that they had come from New Jersey, where they usually spent the winter, that they never  lived in houses when they could help it, and that the  large van had cost Henry, the head of the tribe, more  than three hundred dollars. Three women besides herself and the fortune-teller were part of this tribe, and there  were two other children besides the young girl and the  baby whom the girls had seen.