Text Leveling System

Jip: His Story

RDQ:	1932	Max Word/Sent	53	Total Words	2254		Diff Words	794
Lex	890	Ave Word/.Sent	12	Hi Freq occurs	1541	68.4%	Hi freq	301	37.9%
AR	4.9	Long Sentences	23.1	Low Freq occurs	258	11.4%	Low freq	193	24.3%

The Gypsy Boy
Old Berthie was the one that told Jip. "A lunatic boy" 
she said leaning so close Jip could count the hairs in her 
nostrils. "A raving lunatic." She sniffed. 'We're all of us 
poor and there be some" she rolled her eyes toward Old 
George and Sheldon Morse "who is simple. But we're 
harmless ain't we boy? What do they mean bringing a 
lunatic amongst poor God-fearing folk who done no 
harm nor had no luck in this cruel world?"
Jip nodded solemnly. He never argued with Berthie.
Once he dared question her when she said Ethan Allen
had been a fool. After all Ethan Allen and his Green
Mountain Boys were the only genuine Vermont heroes
Jip had ever heard tell of.
"Ethan Allen was a hero" he'd said.
She slapped him across the cheek so hard it stung. He 
wouldn't have credited that old wrinkled hand with such 
strength. "I said 'fool' boy. Don't go contradicting your 
elders!"
He didn't again. Besides why were they bringing a 
lunatic to the poor farm?
"Money" Berthie said. "It'd cost the town too dear to 
send him to the asylum."
The Overseer of the Poor had appeared several days]] 
earlier. Mr. Flint was an imposing man tall enough to 
look down his nose at most of the population with deep 
buckshot eyes and sunken cheeks like a skeleton. You 
could tell from his frock coat and stovepipe hat what an 
important man he was in these parts. Indeed he was the 
wealthiest and most important man that any of the 
residents knew of. It was he that had put each of them here 
on the town poor farm and demanded their gratitude on 
every possible occasion.
Overseer Flint drove his gig down the rutted road that 
morning in early April cursing and whipping his mare 
urging her through the spring mud. The residents gathered 
respectfully in the yard to welcome his arrival could 
hear the unchristian language from where they stood 
huddled against one another for warmth. They reckoned 
the overseer above the law-even the biblical injunctions 
about the Lord's name-that tempered the speech of 
more ordinary mortals.
Despite the overseer's powerful tongue the gig's left 
back wheel stuck held fast in the greedy clay. "Jip Sheldon 
go help Mr. Flint" Otis Lyman the farm's manager yelled. 
Jip sprang forward grabbing Sheldon's big rough hand.
Sheldon looked at him puzzled.
"We got to get the overseer's wheel loose Sheldon. 
You and me together ey?"
"Awright Jip." Sheldon was always obliging. He just 
didn't catch on too fast.
The overseer stopped his red-faced cursing when the 
two of them got close.
"Good day to you Mr. Flint sir. I 'spect you better get 
down sir" Jip said.]]
The overseer peered skeptically at them-the skinny boy 
and the husky young simpleton. The mare straining 
at the reins was sweating her eyes wild from pulling. 
Couldn't the man see his own weight was making the 
wheel sink deeper and deeper?
"If'n you'd light down-" the boy began.
The man didn't wait for him to finish. His mouth 
pursed he climbed down gingerly to the less muddy side 
then threw his reins back toward Jip. Jip gathered them 
in one hand and watched as the tall man tiptoed around 
the muddiest ruts picking a cautious way up the road to 
the crowd watching from the farmhouse yard.
"Wait Sheldon" Jip said quietly when the man 
seemed out of earshot. "We got to make friends with this 
poor critter first. Mr. Flint has aggravated her something 
fearful with all his whipping and cursing." He moved to 
the mare's head and began to speak soothingly to the 
beast. The horse tossed her head once but when the boy
reached a chapped hand to her neck she let him stroke
it-barely stamping her muddy feet.
"Now Sheldon" Jip said his voice hardly louder than 
a spring breeze on a maple branch "jest put your shoulder 
on that wheel and when I say 'gee' you shove all
right?"
Sheldon grinned nodding his prematurely balding 
head. "I'm strong" he said proudly.
"That's right Sheldon. You ain't got extra sense but 
you're lots stronger than most anyone. I can't do without 
you. All I can do is talk sweet to this here horse. You're 
the one what's got to save the gig for the overseer."
"He'll say 'Thank you Sheldon. You're a good boy.'"]] 
"He might Sheldon. He jest might. Anyhow we got 
to do it thanks or no."
Lacking the overseer's weight and anger and with 
Sheldon's strong shoulder against the wheel the little 
mare eased the gig from its muddy trap with little effort. 
Jip patted her neck kissed it and praised her.
"You too Sheldon you done every bit as good as the 
horse. Only she was upset so I have to pet her special."
"I know Jip."
They got no thanks from Mr. Flint. By the time horse 
boy and man had walked into the yard and Jip had tied 
the reins to the hitching post Mr. Flint had forgotten all 
about them. He was deep in a heated discussion with the 
farm manager whose bulbous nose gleamed out redder 
than ever as he tried to argue with his superior. Mrs. 
Lyman was shooing all the residents into the house and 
out of hearing. "You too Jip Sheldon. Everyone inside. 
None of your affair. The overseer has business with Mr. 
Lyman. Not with you." She was clucking like a mother 
hen and waving her arms at them. "We mustn't get in 
the gentlemen's way. Come on now."
They obeyed if grudgingly. What could they do? They 
were like chicks here on this farm pecking about to keep 
alive. There were seven of them at the time-four 
because they were old with no one to care for them:
Berthie Joe Willis and the silent Throsina. Two were 
simple-Sheldon in his early thirties and George who 
was sickly and old and probably simple as well. Like 
Throsina he seldom spoke so no one could be quite sure.
And then there was Jip. When he arrived Mr. Lyman 
had examined his teeth and pronounced that he was two]]
or maybe three but no one knew for sure. He had fallen 
off the back of a wagon on the West Hill Road. Eye
witnesses (at least some who claimed to have been there 
on the usually deserted road) said the wagon was hell
bent for hades careening around the sharp curve about a 
mile out of the village when this odd bit of a boy just 
tumbled right off the back.
"No one bothered themselves to come back and claim 
you" Mrs. Lyman had said quite matter-of-factly.
"But didn't I tell you who I was?"Jip had figured early 
on that the maybe three-year-old child who fell off the 
wagon was old enough to tell somebody who he was.
"You were speaking nothing but gibberish at the time 
when you wasn't screaming your head off" she said. 
"Maybe you was a gypsy babe as some say. Or maybe you 
knocked your head on a stone when you hit the road." 
She cocked her head and studied him for a minute. "You 
ain't overly clever-not simple like Sheldon-but you 
likely lost something in that fall." She tapped her own 
head meaningfully.
Still Jip was smart enough to wonder. There was plenty 
of time to ponder on things at the farm. He worked hard 
as he and Sheldon were the only able-bodied residents 
but most of the work left his mind free to ponder.
W/hy he asked the chickens as he threw them grain 
why had no one come back for him? Wouldn't you 
notice say if you began the day with six children and 
come night the count was down to five? Even if you 
were in a powerful hurry to leave these rocky hills to get 
West to where the good land lay wouldn't it cross your 
mind to wonder what had become of your missing]] 
young'un that you once had but suddenly wasn't there 
anymore? Even a goose can count her goslings and know 
if a fox got one in the night.
Even supposing you were a heartless gypsy who stole 
other people's children like pies off a cooling sill wouldn't 
you care about one of your own?
Jip's hair was darkish and on the curly side. His ears 
stuck out a bit. Did Romany ears protrude? The better to 
hear with-that was what he told Sheldon but privately 
staring into the wavy kitchen mirror he thought they 
gave him the look of a two-handled jug. In the summer 
his skin burned dark and in the winter it was a perpetual 
shade of gray. But maybe that was because it didn't often 
get scrubbed. He was like a barn cat. He didn't mind giving 
himself a lick or two but the sight of a tub of steaming 
water in the kitchen made him race toward the door. 
When he was tiny Mrs. Lyman occasionally stripped 
him and doused him but now that he was too big to haul 
about she gave up on baths.
He might indeed be dark like a gypsy babe. On the 
other hand perhaps just perhaps he was a child the 
Romanys had snatched from loving parents who were 
still mourning the loss of their beautiful baby boy.
Deacon Avery of the Congregational Church had 
come along the West Hill Road in his gig that day. He 
had gotten down and approached the child and told him 
to "go home" like he was some stray but it hadn't 
worked. So after lengthy hesitation and debate with his 
wife the deacon had picked the odd little screaming 
bundle off the dirt of the road.
His wife had made him take it direct to Reverend]] 
Goodrich. The worthy reverend had thirteen children of 
his own and a very low salary. With some reluctance he 
in turn had called upon the authorities-that is to say 
Mr. Flint the Overseer of the Poor. It was the overseer's 
job to clear the town of tramps and transients and sweep 
the poor and mentally defective out of the village and 
onto the poor farm where they would not offend the 
eyes and nostrils of God-fearing citizens nor strain their 
purse strings overmuch.
Mr. Lyman had protested that the poor farm was not 
an orphan asylum until Mr. Flint proposed that money 
could be extracted from the poor farm tax allocation to 
send the foundling to some distant institution. Or alternatively 
the child could be set up with a worthy Christian 
household closer by again with fees from the poor 
farm budget. Mr. Lyman chose to keep his meager funds 
intact.
The farm manager prided himself that he had done 
well by the boy. He tried him in school once. But the 
other children complained of the smell and even the 
little ones could make out the letters Jip could not. With 
so many citizens fleeing westward tax revenues plummeted 
and with them funds to operate the poor farm. 
In desperation the manager hired Jip out to a local 
farmer. To Mrs. Lyman's suggestion that Jip might be a 
bit too young for a hired man he'd said the plain truth. 
"The boy is eating up all the profits Mrs. Lyman." She 
couldn't argue. Even the boy listening to the debate 
knew the manager was right. For all his scrawniness he 
shoveled in everything that wasn't nailed to the table. 
"But who will have him?" she'd asked.]] 
Farmer Slaytor would. He would have anything he 
could beat and bully. His own dog cowered at the sight 
of him. Jip's most vivid memory of that time was being 
grabbed by an ear and dragged to see how badly he had 
swept the kitchen or shoveled out the barn. "See! See!" 
the man would yell. "A blind idjit could do better." As Jip 
swept and cried the dog would find him and rub his 
body against the boy's legs and whimper its sympathy.
Jip might be there yet-one ear larger than the other 
from all that yanking-but Farmer Slaytor upped and 
married a husky widow woman from Chelsea and sent 
his less than satisfactory hand back to the poor farm.
To Jip it felt like coming home. For the poor farm was 
the only home he could remember. He loved the rocky 
pastures. He loved standing in the spring wind gazing at 
the distant hills the green deeply pockmarked with the 
gray of Deacon Avery's granite quarry and the piles of 
slag around it. He loved the way the sun glinted off the 
stone. Perhaps when he was a man he would go to work 
there driving shivs into the rock face with a great sledge
hammer filling the holes with black powder and 
BOOM! blasting the huge granite blocks from the 
bedrock.
When he came back to the poor farm after those 
few months away he seemed a different boy. Privately 
Mr. Lyman wondered why Slaytor had let him go. He 
wouldn't of course have said anything to anyone for it 
was the poor who were to be grateful not their managers. 
Lyman fancied himself not a fully healthy man 
and the beasts and residents of the farm were a constant
trial to him. The boy had a way with both though. He]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Many Long Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Chapters

Features

Character traits

Character development

Integral Setting - Historical

Topic

*Family & Friends

Low Frequency Words

aggravated	allocation	alternatively	amongst	approached
asylum	authorities	awright	bedrock	biblical
budget	bulbous	careening	cautious	chapped
citizens	congregational	constant	contradicting	cowered
cruel	cursing	curve	darkish	deacon
defective	desperation	despite	discussion	doused
earshot	eased	elders	ethan	extracted
factly	fancied	farm's	flint	folk
foundling	frock	fully	gazing	gentlemen's
gibberish	gig	gig's	gingerly	glinted
goodrich	goslings	granite	grateful	gratitude
grudgingly	gypsy	hades	handled	healthy
heartless	hell	heroes	hesitation	household
husky	hy	idjit	if'n	imposing
injunctions	institution	intact	jest	jip
jip's	lacking	language	lengthy	likely
lord's	lunatic	lyman	lyman's	manager
managers	maple	meager	meaningfully	mentally
mortals	mourning	muddiest	mustn't	nailed
nostrils	obeyed	obliging	occasion	occasionally
offend	operate	ordinary	otis	overly
overmuch	overseer	overseer's	pastures	peered
perpetual	plummeted	pockmarked	ponder	population
praised	prematurely	prided	profits	proposed
protrude	purse	pursed	quarry	raving
reckoned	redder	reins	reluctance	residents
respectfully	revenues	reverend	romany	romanys
rough	rutted	salary	satisfactory	scrawniness
seldom	sheldon	sheldon's	shivs	shooing
shove	shoveled	sickly	simpleton	skeptically
slag	slaytor	sledge	snatched	solemnly
soothingly	spect	speech	sprang	stamping
stovepipe	stripped	studied	stung	suggestion
sunken	superior	supposing	sweating	swept
sympathy	tempered	thirties	throsina	transients
trial	unchristian	upped	urging	vermont
vivid	warmth	wavy	wealthiest	westward
whimper	whipping	widow	willis	witnesses
worthy	wrinkled	yanking	young'un