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Gypsies

Often during my childhood, the gypsies would come to our house. They would stop in for bread or whatever they could get. We were told that sometimes they would "steal" children. One day we heard that the gypsies were coming up the road. Before they had a chance to "steal" us, we all ran to the barn and hid in a big feed box we had. It had two compartments and a hinged cover. We crawled into these compartments, 3 in one and 4 in the other, and waited until they left. It was really cramped and stuffy in there. It's a good thing they didn't stay too long, or we might all have suffocated. Mother never knew where we went. Sometimes we would hide under the beds when they came. Other times we would just hang around and stay close to our mother. They never did "steal" us or even attempt to.