White skirts and dressing-sacks; winter hoods that ought to have been put up in camphor long ago; aprons hung up by the trimming; a calico dress that yawned mournfully out of a twelve-inch tear in the skirt; a pile of stockings that had waited long, and were likely to wait longer, for darning; some rubber-boots and a hatchet.
The bureau drawers, Tom observed, were tightly shut,--probably for very good reasons.

The table, at which he sat, was a curiosity to the speculative mind.

The cloth was two-thirds off, and slipping, by a very gradual process, to the floor.

On the remaining third stood an inkstand and a bottle of mucilage, as well as a huge pile of books, a glass tumbler, a Parian vase, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a thimble, two spools of thread, a small kite, and a riding-whip.

The rest of the table had been left free to draw a map on, and was covered with pencils and rubber, compasses, paper, and torn geography leaves.
There were several pretty pictures on the walls, but they were all hung crookedly; the curtain at the window was unlooped, and you could write your name anywhere in the dust that covered mantel, stove, and furniture.
And this was Gypsy's room.
Tom had spent a longer time in looking at it than I have taken to tell about it, and when he was through looking he did one of those things that big brothers of sixteen long years' experience in this life, who are always teasing you and making fun of you and "preaching" at you, are afflicted with a chronic and incurable tendency to do.