Part I Chapter 5 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
GIPSY LIFE
"About three miles further on I overtook a Gipsy caravan creeping along the road through the morning mist. At the rear of the procession a dog was scouting around in the ditches for rats. I had never met a Gipsy dog, so, rather curious, I went up to him and offered to help him hunt for rats. He seemed a sort of a grouchy silent fellow but I liked him for all that. He made no objection to my joining him and together we gave several rats a good run for their money.
"Little by little I drew the Gipsy dog out and questioned him as to what sort of a life it was to travel with the caravans. These people too were folk of the road like me, and I had serious thoughts of throwing in my lot with them for a while. From what he told me I gathered that a dog led quite a free life with the Gipsies and was interfered with very little.
"'The grub is kind of irregular,' said my friend, who had got over his grouchiness somewhat and seemed inclined to take to me. 'But then the whole of the Gipsy business is irregular, one might say. If you can stand that you'll probably rather like the life. It's interesting, travelling around all the time. We do see the world, after all. If we have hardships, at least it's better than being treated like a lap dog, trotted out on a leash and living on the same street all the time. Why don't you try it for a while? Just tag along with me. No one will mind. Likely as not the Gipsies themselves will never even notice that you've joined the caravan—at least not for a few days anyhow.'
"I did not need very much persuasion and it turned out eventually that I did join the Gipsies and on the whole had quite a good time with them. My friend had certainly been right about the food. To say it was irregular was putting it mildly. There were many days and nights when there simply wasn't any. But the Gipsy dog, through long experience in this kind of life, knew all sorts of dodges for getting provender under difficult conditions. I strongly suspect that my friend was one of the cleverest larder burglars that ever lived. Often I didn't even know where he got the supplies from and no amount of questioning would make him tell. Many a night when we were both starving, around supper time, with the prospect of going to bed hungry beneath the caravans, Mudge would say to me—that was his name, Mudge—
"'Oh, golly! I'm not going to bed hungry. Listen, Quetch: I think I know where I may be able to raise some fodder. You wait here for me.'
"'Shall I come too?' I'd say.
"'Er—no. Better not, I think,' he'd mutter. 'Hunting is sometimes easier single-handed.'
"Then off he would go. And in half an hour he'd be back again with the most extraordinary things. One night he would bring a steak-and-kidney pudding, tied up in the muslin it was boiled in—complete, mind you, and steaming hot. Another time it would be a roast chicken, stuffed with sage and onions, with sausages skewered to its sides.
"Of course it didn't take much detective work to tell, on occasions of this kind, that Mudge had just bagged some one else's dinner. I'm afraid I was usually far too hungry to waste time moralizing over where the things came from. Still, I strongly suspect that some good housewives called down many curses on Mudge's head during the course of his career. But the marvellous thing to me was how he did it without ever being caught.
"Yet the life was certainly pleasant for the most part. We visited all the fairs and saw the towns in holiday mood. It was in these days that I met Toby, who was, as you know, then a Punch-and-Judy dog. Yes, I liked the Gipsy life—chiefly because we were nearly always in the country, where a dog's life has most fun in it. Along the lanes there were always rats to dig for; across the meadows there were always hares to chase; and in the roadside woods and copses there were always pheasants and partridges to catch.
"That chapter of my life lasted about three months and it ended, as did the one before it, suddenly. We had been visiting a fair in a town of considerable size. Part of our own show was a fortune-telling booth. Here an old Gipsy woman, the mother of our boss, used to tell people's fortunes with cards. A party of quite well-to-do folk stopped at the booth one day to have their fortunes told. Mudge and I were hanging around outside the tent.
"'Let's get away from here,' he whispered to me. 'I don't like the looks of this mob. I lost a friend like that once before.'
"'Like what?' I asked.
"'Oh, Joe,' said Mudge.—Joe was the name of our boss.—'Joe never notices any stray dogs who join the caravan till somebody else notices them. Then he tries to sell them.... This friend of mine was a whippet. One of the visitors to the booth took a fancy to him and Joe just sold him then and there. I'd never get sold because I'm not nifty-looking. But you, you're smart enough to catch anyone's eye—specially the women. Take my advice; fade away till this mob's gone.'
"Mudge was already moving off, but I called him back. I was interested in this fortune-telling business. I hoped to get my own fortune told by the old woman. She read people's palms. I had been looking at the lines in my paw-pads and they seemed to me quite unusual. The future interested me. I was keen to know what sort of a career I had before me. I felt it ought to be a great one.
"'Just a minute, Mudge,' I said. 'Why get worried? How can Joe sell me when I don't belong to him?'
"'Don't you worry about that,' said Mudge. 'Joe would sell anything, the Houses of Parliament or the coat off the Prime Minister's back—if he could. A word to the wise. Fade away.'
"Mudge's advice was sound, but for me it came a bit late. I noticed as I turned to follow him that one of the women was already pointing at me and that Joe, to whom she was talking, was very interested in the interest she was showing. For about half an hour after that I saw nothing more of Mudge. I had moved round to another part of the fair grounds till the visitors should have departed from the fortune-telling booth.
"While I was looking at a strong man lifting weights the Gipsy dog suddenly came up to me from behind and whispered:
"'It's all up, Quetch. You'll have to clear out. That woman liked you so much that she said she'd buy you when Joe offered you to her. He is hunting for you everywhere now.'
"'But why,' I asked, 'can't I just keep out of the way till the woman has gone?'
"'It is no use,' said Mudge. 'Joe won't rest till he has sold you, now that he knows you're the kind of dog the ladies take a fancy to. What's more, if he misses this sale he will likely keep you on a chain right along, so as to make sure of you next time some one wants to buy you.'
"'Good gracious, Mudge!' I cried. 'Would he really do that? But tell me: Why do you yourself live with such a man? Come with me and we will go off together.'
"Mudge grinned and shook his head.
"'Joe is all right to me,' he said. 'He may not be what you'd call exactly a gentleman. But he's all right to me. You're a stranger, you see. He looks on me as one of the tribe, the Romany folk, you understand. Their hand is against every man, but not against one another. Even if I were good enough looking to bring him a ten-pound note I doubt if Joe would sell me. He is a queer one, is Joe. But he's always been square to me.... No, Quetch, I'll stay with the caravan, with the Romany folk. Once a vagabond, always a vagabond, they say. I'll miss you. But, well ... Good luck to you, Quetch ... Better be going now. If Joe once lays hands on you you'll never get away till he sells you, you can be sure of that.'
"So, very sad at heart—for I had grown very fond of the strange Mudge, the Gipsy mongrel, the dog of few words—I left the fair and struck out along the road again, the Road of Fortune, alone.
"Dear me, what an unsatisfactory world it was! When one did find a nice kind of life something or somebody always seemed to shove you out of it just as you were beginning to enjoy it.
"Still, I had much of the world to see yet. And after all, my experiences so far had not brought to me that ideal independent sort of life that I was looking for. I was sorry I had not been able to have my fortune told. I looked at my paw again. I was sure it must be a good one. It was a nice sunny day. I soon threw aside my gloomy thoughts and trotted forward, eager to see what every new turn in the road might bring."