The Tramp

There once was a girl named Silvia who lived with her grandmother on the edge of the small town of Spindleton. Her grandmother was a seamstress and every day she and Silvia would sew clothes for the villagers.
One day when Silvia was about twelve years old and her grandmother had gone into the village to deliver a newly finished garment, she was sitting alone on the wooden bench outside the cottage sewing on a little girls winter dress. She sat there with all appearance of patience which was only betrayed by her legs giving a quick little swing now and then as if they wanted to run away over the moors that stretched out invitingly in front of them. But Silvia, with her chestnut hair falling in waves about her shoulders, prudently kept her sparkling blue eyes intently on her work not daring to look up lest the moors entice her away before her work was done. But then she just couldn't resist the silent and insistent call of the purple expanse of moorlands! She looked up, but her eyes never strayed past the garden gate, for walking slowly up the path was a man. He was old and bent but he walked with a lively air about him, over one shoulder he carried a sack with something bulky in it. He wore tramps clothes, but, although shabby, they were clean.
"Hello miss," he said as he came up to her, "I would be asking o' ye for a wee bit o' water miss." He swung the sack off his shoulder and set it carefully on the ground.
"Hello, Mr. Jones." said Silvia, and jumping up scooped a cupful of water out of the rain barrel nearby. "It's fresh. It rained last night." she said handing him the cup.
"Yes, yes, I saw Rushing Stream were a wee "igher than the usual." Mr. Jones sat down next to Silvia on the bench where she had resumed her sewing.
"So, how be you miss? An that grandma o' your'n?" he asked.
"We are fine," answered Silvia lightly ,"And how about yourself? Where have you been traveling these last months?"
"I'm doing dandy. 'bin all the ways to London, saw the Queen, and played my way down the coast"
Silvia smiling to herself asked, "And how was the Queen?"
"She's doing well as can be expected, I stopped t' e't wi' 'er an ma way 'ome."He began with hes funny dialect-- a characteristic of his, "You see I was passin' 'er castle an I thought I might jus stop for a wee bit o' water. Well I was comin' on to th' big gates thats there when the Queen herself came driving up in that chariot o' her'n she stops an askes for a song on ol' Ruckety here," he patted the bulky sack lovingly and continued, "Well she liked it right well an asked me up to take supper wi 'er. I declare she makes th best shep'ards pie I ever done 'et!" He leaned back smiling to himself.
"But I would think the Queen has many cooks to cook for her!" Said Silvia playfully
"Ah yes child, indeed, she cooks only for special guests ya know. That's how come I know she like ma song." Mr. Jones replied looking wisely at her.
Silvia smiled, she loved the old man who came with his accordion to play for a few pennies. He came a few times a year to Spindleton and stayed at the seamstresses house at night and all day went around the village with his accordion while Silvia helped her grandmother sew him a new outfit as needed. Or not so needed for even though his old one was good enough to stand much more wear he insisted on a new one every few months when he came to the village. He paid Silvia's grandmother well for the clothes and though she insisted otherwise she always needed the money and barely scraped together enogh money to clothe her wild granddaughter, who if not keept busy sewing would run off to collect a new arrangement of tears in her dresses.
People loved Mr. Jones' music for he played well, but most of them liked his storys best. He would keep them spellbound with his storys of people and places and animals that the villagers had never heard of before. Every time he came to the village he seamed to have a whole new headful of storys to be told. They were exiting and interesting storys but nobody believed they were really true, especially those far fetched concoctions about him and the Queen.
Nobody knew who he was or where he came from, he didn't seam to have a home and from his speech you he seamed to have come from the wilds of scotland and the southern shores of England all at once.
Silvia and Mr. Jones sat on the bench talking until the sun began to set in the west sending golden rays of light to the clouds and setting them afire, as a lamplighter lights the lamps in a vast marble palace.
"Grandmother is late" observed Silvia, concerned "I wonder what can be keeping her."
"But isn't 'at 'er, now, comin' up 't road?" Mr. Jones indicated towards the village.
"Yes that's her" Silvia jumped up, "I had best get supper started" And she hurried inside. And began preparing the evening meal.
She came out again as her grandmother came up to the house puffing and out of breath.
"Hello, Grandmother, what kept you so long? Look Mr. Jones is here again!" Said her granddaughter in one breath. Her grandmother greeted the visitor kindly and sat down on the bench beside him.
"Well Silvia," She said, "I guess you've a bin listening to Mr. Jones' stories all day and not getting any work done."
"Oh no, Grandmother, I was doing my sewing while I listened!"
The old woman grunted, "well I guess Mr. Jones is going to make up another story after tomorrow, 'bout him an' the Queen." She said not unkindly.
"What do you mean, Grandmother? What's happening tomorrow asked Silvia eagerly.
"Well all that's happenin' tomorrow is that the Queens commin'" Answered her granmother placedly.
Silvia notices a strange look pass over thier visitor's face.
"But why would she come here?" She asked, puzzled, for royalty did not usually grace such small towns as Spindleton with thier pressence.
"She's not commin' here exactly, just passing through to one of her many wintering places I dare say" Grandmother got up and started for the cottage door, "Have you begun supper, Silvia?"
"Yes I just started."
"Well," mussed the guest to himself, "so the Queen is going."
"What do you mean?" Inquired the curious Silvia.
"Oh, what? hem! I guess she 'old me 'at she wa' a goin' down t' coast a ways an not ower 'ere" Answered Mr. Jones quickly. Then he changed the subject to a story of whales and whaling ships. Silvia listened, wondering, for he had told her that story already that day.

Early the next morning all the people, with Mr. Jones playing them on, were busy cleaning up the main street of Spindleton through which the Queen was too pass in her royal carriage. The villagers were proud of their small town and were not ready to be shamed by a single bit of unwanted dirt.
The blacksmith cleaned his shop of all the black and cleaned himself too. The respected clergyman got as many of his parish that were not already busy to give the church a though scrub and whitewash (on the outside). The draper, the cobbler, the watchmaker, and the baker were all competitive in displays of their respective wares. And everyone cleaned up the street, indeed the road sweeper was put out of work for a week so great was the public's zeal preparing the road for the Queen. And so, with everyone helping with a will, by noon the village was cleaner than it ever had been before--that is, the main street was.
The Queen was due in the afternoon and all the villagers were out on the road at the eastern end of the village keeping a lookout for the royal carriage. The old seamstress and her granddaughter walked from their cottage at the western side of town to see the Queen arrive. Mr. Jones didn't go with them, he preferred to stay at the cottage with the excuse that if he went he would be taking up someones viewing space who had never seen the Queen, and he, of course, had. So they left him smoking his pipe on the bench in front of the cottage.
Silvia and her grandmother and the rest of the excited villagers waited impatiently for the royal arrival. They almost believed she couldn't really be coming. But the Queen was on time so they needn't have worried. People heard the shouts and cheers of the people, the Queen was in sight! She pushed her way through the crowd to the road, here she had a better view. And then she saw the mounded guards and two carriages following slowly behind. The noise was deafening! The first carriage held the Queen; she sat with noble dignity and waved a gloved hand lightly to the commoners. The second carriage held some royal persons Silvia did not know. But she hardly looked at them, for her eyes were fixed on the Queen. The little village girl had never seen such fine clothes or such jewels as the Queen had. And though the Queen was certainly not dressed in her finest for the journey, Silvia thought that it was surely not possible to have finer clothes than what that royal lady was wearing.
As the royal carriage passed, Silvia was pushed ahead of the eager crowd following the procession all the way down main street until she could see her own home and Mr. Jones standing at the gate. "Like he's receiving the Queen as his guest" Thought Silvia with a fond smile, "That's so like him, I guess he will be disappointed when the Queen passes him with no special acknowledgment, I think he half believes his own stories!"
Silvia hurried on after the royal carriages with the rest of the cheering people and stopped with them in astonishment. For as the Queen's carriage was passing Mr. Jones, and just as Silvia had been feeling sorry for him in his coming disappointment, her royal majesty stopped the procession and, leaning out the window, exclaimed, "Why Mr. Jones! What on the earth are you doing here?"
The people of Spindleton stared in amazement, the Queen was talking to Mr. Jones, she knew him! The man whom they had known for years as a tramp and a storyteller who played an accordion for a living.
Mr. Jones bowed to the Queen.
"lf you will excuse me your majesty, I am the tramp your royal lapdog followed all the way down London street, I am the tramp who was thrown out of the palace as a bold faced beggar, (And I beg your pardon for the incident). I am also commonly known to the public as the Tramp with the accordion, and by your majesty as royal storyteller."
He bowed again, and, to Silvia, looked as he were merely discussing the weather.
"Oh my," Gasped the Queen, "So this is what you spend your time doing, Jones" Then she laughed, "I should have known, I did often wonder at how well acquainted you were with the ways of tramps and such people. Well I hope to see you in London next year. Goodbye, Jones." And with a wave of her hand she signaled the procession on and out of sight over the bridge that spanned Rushing Stream.

The next morning Mr. Jones started off on his way after a short visit. Silvia stood at the gate with her grandmother watching him slowly and steadily walk away. As she stood watching him, Silvia thought of yesterday. Mr. Jones hadn't been excited like all the villagers when the news of the Queens coming came, he hadn't gone to see her come through the town with the cheering crowd. Silvia knew why Mr. Jones had become a tramp, "He wanted to see the country," She thought "the country as it really is to the commoners". But why did he let the villagers know who he was, or the Queen for that matter?
Mr. Jones walked steadily on up the slope away from the village, and then he waved--a thing he had never done--before disapearing down the other side of the hill. Silvia waved back knowing suddenly that Mr Jones would not come back to Spindleton for years, if ever, not until the people had forgotten who he was.
Silvia's grandmother looked down at her kindly
"He's gone lass." she said simply, so she knew too.