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Gypsy Breynton By: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911) |
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By
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
GRAVES & YOUNG,
in the Clerk's Office for the District Court of Massachusetts Copyright, 1894, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.
PREFACE.
Having been asked to write a preface to the new edition of the Gypsy
books, I am not a little perplexed. I was hardly more than a girl myself,
when I recorded the history of this young person; and I find it hard, at
this distance, to photograph her as she looks, or ought to look to day.
She does not sit still long enough to be "taken." I see a lively girl in
pretty short dresses and very long stockings, quite a Tom boy, if I
remember rightly. She paddles a raft, she climbs a tree, she skates and
tramps and coasts, she is usually very muddy, and a little torn. There is
apt to be a pin in her gathers; but there is sure to be a laugh in her
eyes. Wherever there is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever there is
fun, and health, and hope, and happiness, and I think, wherever there is
truthfulness and generosity, there is Gypsy, too. And now, the publishers tell me that Gypsy is thirty years old, and that
girls who were not so much as born when I knew the little lady, are her
readers and her friends to day. Thirty years old? Indeed, it is more than that! For is it not thirty years
since the publication of her memoirs? And was she, at that time, possibly
sixteen? Forty six years? Incredible! How in the world did Gypsy "grow
up?" For that was before toboggans and telephones, before bicycles and
electric cars, before bangs and puffed sleeves, before girls studied
Greek, and golf capes came in. Did she go to college? For the Annex, and
Smith, and Wellesley were not. Did she have a career? Or take a husband?
Did she edit a Quarterly Review, or sing a baby to sleep? Did she write
poetry, or make pies? Did she practice medicine, or matrimony? Who knows?
Not even the author of her being. Only one thing I do know: Gypsy never grew up to be "timid," or silly, or
mean, or lazy; but a sensible woman, true and strong; asking little help
of other people, but giving much; an honor to her brave and loving sex,
and a safe comrade to the girls who kept step with her into middle life;
and I trust that I may bespeak from their daughters and their scholars a
kindly welcome to an old story, told again. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Newton Centre, Mass.,
April, 1895.
CONTENTS CHAPTER I WHICH INTRODUCES HER 7
CHAPTER II A SPASM OF ORDER 21
CHAPTER III MISS MELVILLE'S VISITOR 42
CHAPTER IV GYPSY HAS A DREAM 69
CHAPTER V WHAT SHE SAW 89
CHAPTER VI UP IN THE APPLE TREE 105
CHAPTER VII JUST LIKE GYPSY 126
CHAPTER VIII PEACE MAYTHORNE 146
CHAPTER IX CAMPING OUT 167
CHAPTER X THE END OF THE WEEK 202
CHAPTER XI GYPSY'S OPINION OF BOSTON 213
CHAPTER XII NO PLACE LIKE HOME 242
GYPSY BREYNTON CHAPTER I WHICH INTRODUCES HER
"Gypsy Breynton. Hon. Gypsy Breynton, Esq., M. A., D. D., LL. D., &c., &c.
Gypsy Breynton, R. R." Tom was very proud of his handwriting. It was black and business like,
round and rolling and readable, and drowned in a deluge of hair line
flourishes, with little black curves in the middle of them. It had been
acquired in the book keeping class of Yorkbury high school, and had taken
a prize at the end of the summer term. And therefore did Tom lean back in
his chair, and survey, with intense satisfaction, the great sheet of
sermon paper which was covered with his scrawlings. Tom was a handsome fellow, if he did look very well pleased with himself
at that particular moment. His curly hair was black and bright, and
brushed off from a full forehead, and what with that faint, dark line of
moustache just visible above his lips, and that irresistible twinkle to
his great merry eyes, it was no wonder Gypsy was proud of him, as indeed
she certainly was, nor did she hesitate to tell him so twenty times a day... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Teen/Young adult |
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