Daddy was cutting down the last shoulder from the smokehouse and Moma was madder than a wet setting hen.
"Joe, "she said, “send that bunch packing.”
The gypsies had been there before and daddy gave them an old hen or two for some work in the past.
It was early spring. The baby chicks were in the brooder house and we’d already burned the tobacco beds. The days were warmer, the nights still cool.
You could smell the gypsies wood fires down by dry branch. The gypsies wandered across the road from the creek bank to the old barn by the road. Daddy was feeding the pigs, standing near the pig wallow.
This time the deal the gypsies were offering was big. The gypsies intended to paint the old pig barn silver. Mom said it would stick out like a sore thumb.
There were five gypsies, two older men and three boys in their teens.
One of the older men said to daddy, “tell what I’ll do, Joe, tell what I’ll do. You got any ham meat in the smokehouse?” Daddy said, “no, but we’ve got one shoulder left.”
The old Gypsy said, “tell you what I’ll do, Joe. I put these younguns to paintin’ your barn right now and you head on up the hill and cut down that shoulder and a few dozen eggs and we’ll paint the roof and the sides too if you could throw in a gallon of milk. That’s what I can do, Joe.”
I don’t think daddy counted on mom watching him like a hawk. When he came out of the smokehouse with that shoulder, moma let loose on him. “Put that shoulder right back where you got it.” “Awww,”daddy said, “we’ll be eating young chickens soon and that old barn needs some paint.”
Moma huffed, “ just let them take you for all you’re worth and the next thing you know they’ll be stealing those young chickens!”
The gypsies were camped out down by dry branch and before daylight the next morning they were gone. Daddy heard the dogs barking in the night and figured possums or raccoons had stirred them up.
When moma went to the hen house to feed the laying hens, she counted each one. Three missing. The damn gypsies had ham, eggs and chickens!
A few days later, a wind whipped up and the clouds over dry branch turned as black as ink. Moma told me to go gather the kindling for the morning fire before it got soaked.
The rains came heavy and hard.
The next morning Campground Road had a silt of silver running in rivulets toward the bottoms.
I can’t remember much about the fallout of the old pig barn being adorned with grayish streaks and the ground around the barn a muddy glob of space age silver.
I do know, for sure, the gypsies never darkened our doors again.