Dave Cowan was already talking of other things, seeming not to have been ever so little impressed with his reception by these wondrous people, but he had won a new measure of his son’s respect.  Wilbur would have lingered here where they could still observe through the lower trees the group about the campfire, but Dave Cowan seemed to have had enough of gypsies for the moment, and sauntered on up the ridge, across an alder swale and out on a parklike space to rest against a fence that bounded a pasture belonging to the Whipple New Place.  Across this pasture, in which the fat sorrel pony grazed and from which it regarded them from time to time, there was another grove of beech and walnut and hickory, and beyond this dimly loomed the red bulk of the Whipple house and outbuildings.  There was a stile through the fence at the point where they reached it, and Dave Cowan idly lolled by this while the Wilbur twin sprawled in the scented grass at his feet.  He well knew he should not be on the ground in his Sunday clothes.  On the other hand, if the gypsies stole him they would not be so fussy as Winona about his clothes.  None of them seemed to have Sunday clothes.

He again broached the suggestion about a gypsy wagon for himself and his father—­and Frank, the dog—­in which they could go far away, seeing all those strange cities and cooking their dinner over campfires.  His father seemed to consider this not wholly impracticable, but there were certain disadvantages of the life, and there were really better ways.  It seems you could be a gypsy in all essentials, and still live in houses like less adventurous people.

“Trouble with them, they got no trade,” said the wise Dave, “and out in all kinds of weather, and small-town constables telling them to move on, and all such.  You learn a good loose trade, then you can go where you want to.”  A loose trade seemed to be one that you could work at any place; they always wanted you if you knew a loose trade like the printer’s—­or, “Now you take barbering,” said Dave.  “There’s a good loose trade.  A barber never has to look for work; he can go into any new town and always find his job.  I don’t know but what I’d just as soon be a barber as a printer.  Some ways I might like it better.  You don’t have as much time to yourself, of course, but you meet a lot of men you wouldn’t meet otherwise; most of ’em fools to be sure, but some of ’em wise that you can get new thoughts from.  It’s a cleaner trade than typesetting and fussing round a small-town print shop.  Maybe you’ll learn to be a good barber; then you can have just as good a time as those gypsies, going about from time to time and seeing the world.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Wilbur twin, “and cutting people’s hair with clippers like Don Paley clipped mine with.”

“New York, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City, Denver, San Antone,” murmured Dave, and there was unction in his tone as he recited these advantages of a loose trade—­“any place you like the looks of, or places you’ve read about that sound good—­just going along with your little kit of razors, and not having to small-town it except when you want a bit of quiet.”