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Another Way Of Life

Merry shook the shiny mahogany tube and looked into the eyepiece again. All the coloured fragments had moved and another beautiful pattern had assembled itself. She didn’t think she had ever seen anything so magical.
“It’s called a kaleidoscope” the boy said, taking it back again and holding it close as if he was afraid she would take it and run away. “I had it for my birthday!”
“What’s a birthday?” Merry asked. If having one brought you wonderful things like the kaleidoscope she must ask her father to make her one.
Merry’s father, Zach, was very good at making things. He could carve whistles and mend chair legs. He could patch kettles and make little gardens in baskets that he’d woven from willow twigs. Miriam, Merry’s mother, picked the flowers in the hedgerows (and sometimes in people’s gardens) and sold them at the doors. Merry went with her because she was pretty and people weren’t afraid when they saw a child.
Merry never understood why people were afraid of travellers or why they pulled their children into the house when the caravans went by. The boy was the first child that Merry had ever spoken to. She thought they lived strange and very dull lives, staying in the same place every day, every month, every year. Travellers moved around the country, following the work and the season, picking apples, peas, potatoes, hops and in between selling pegs or lucky heather and mending chairs or pans.

And then there were the horse fairs! Every year Merry’s family met up with other kin at the horse fair at Appleby or Kirkby Stephen and there was music and dancing; watching the beautiful ponies, glossy from being washed in the river and then brushed and brushed, as they raced through the streets. When they were sold there was a feast and maybe a wedding, where the bride and groom in all their best finery, jumped over a besom laid on the ground, holding hands to mark the start of their life together. Sometimes the bride cried when she left to travel with her new husband’s family but they knew they would all meet up again at the next fair.
Merry wondered what would happen if you married a Gaujo and had to live in one place all the time. How would you earn a living and wouldn’t you get tired of seeing the same things out of your window every day....every month....every year?
The boy ran off with his wonderful toy and Merry ran after him. Through the hedge and out into the village street they went. Merry’s scratched skinny brown legs easily keeping up with the boy’s sturdy boot shod feet.
After a while the boy suddenly disappeared into one of the cottages and Merry came to a sudden stop. She’d never been inside a Gaujo house. Her home was a painted wooden vardo, pulled by an old skewbald pony and her grandparents lived in a bender made of willow branches and an old sail.
The house looked dark and threatening and tales were told round the fire of children being stolen away and locked up in these dark stone places.
As Merry turned to run away a lady came to the door and looked at her. Wanting to run but fascinated by this clean fair haired lady with her snowy apron and shiny boots, she just stood open-mouthed and rooted to the spot.
Annie Robinson looked over the grubby bare footed girl, her hair matted and her skinny frame clad in a long skirt and a tattered shawl. The poor thing looks half starved, she thought, an instinctively put out her hand to the child.
Merry turned to flee but in her haste to get away tripped over a tree root and went sprawling, showing Annie that the skirt was all she wore! “Come in child and have some apple pie,” she offered in a gentle voice, as if she was trying to sooth a wild animal. Merry scrambled to her feet, curiosity overcoming her fear. “What’s pie?” she asked. “Don’t you have pie in your house?” the boy asked.
“No apples?” suggested the nice lady. “No oven”. No , Anny thought, apples they could always ‘find’ but their cooking was probably done over a fire in one big pot.

An hour, two mugs of lemonade and most of the pie, later Merry sat on the doorstep. She wouldn’t go into the house but wasn’t sure how to find her way back to the clearing where the vans were parked. It was dusk now and inside the cottage the nice lady was making supper. Merry could see shiny pans on a stove and a table covered with flour. A fat baby sat in a chair fastened in with ribbons banging a spoon. The boy, whose name was Tom, had been called in and she was getting quite scared now. How would she find her way home? Would she have to sleep on this cold hard step all night?
Suddenly a tall, curly haired man with a stick came up the path and nearly fell over the small urchin on his doorstep.
Merry darted away down the path and was gone before he could stop her, frightened that he meant to clout her with the stick, or lock her up somewhere.
Away from the houses it was darker but Merry was used to being out in the dark and the stars and the moon, even though it was just rising, would light her way but which way should she go?
Suddenly there was a rustling noise in the undergrowth and a rabbit shot out, followed by a collie with one brown eye and one green. The rabbit disappeared across the path and down its hole and the dog made straight for Merry, panting, tongue hanging out and put its muddy paws on her shoulders. “Jester” Merry laughed.”You’ve found me. Good old boy!” “Let’s go home!”