which she paddled through the air with a parasol, and told her that her
(Gypsy's) father had been hung upon a lamp-post by Senator Sumner, for
advocating the coercion of the seceded States, and that Tom had set Winnie
afloat on the Kleiner Berg Basin, in a milk-pitcher. Winnie had tipped
over, and was in imminent danger of drowning, if indeed he were not past
hope already, and Tom sat up in the maple-tree, laughing at him.

Her mother appeared to have enlisted in the Union army, and, her father
being detained in that characteristic manner by Mr. Sumner, there was
evidently nothing to be done but for Gypsy to go to Winnie's relief. This
she hastened to do with all possible speed. She dressed herself under a
remarkable sense of not being able to find any buttons, and of getting all
her sleeves upon the wrong arm. She put on her rubber-boots, because it
took so long to lace up her boots. Her stockings she wore upon her arms.
The reason appeared to be, that she might not get her hands wet in pulling
Winnie out. She stopped to put on her sack, her turban, and her blue veil.
She also spent considerable time in commendable efforts to pin on a lace
collar which utterly refused to be pinned, and to fasten at her throat a
velvet bow that kept turning into a little green snake, and twisting round
her fingers.

When at length she was fairly ready, she left the house softly, under the
impression that Tom (who appeared to have the remarkable capacity of being
in the house and down in the maple-trees at one and the same time) would
stop her if he heard her.

She ran down the lane and over the fields and into the woods, where the
Kleiner Berg rose darkly in front of her; so, at last, to the Basin, which
rippled and washed on its shore, and tossed up at her feet--_an empty
milk-pitcher_!