Summary
A foundling, swaddled in scandal and silk, arrives at a gypsy caravan like a comet dragged by destiny; the note pinned to her blanket—ink still wet with mortality—promises a Virginian Eden once the calendar coughs up its eighteenth year. The Rom baro, eyes glinting like obsidian ducats, commandeers the child’s future, ordering Sabia the crone to shear her raven curls and lace her lungs with swagger. Rechristened Firefly, she grows a shadow-self between tambourine thunder and moonlit horse-theft, her true sex buried deeper than the silver spoons the tribe never owned. On a humid Virginian dusk, Vosho—heir to the brass-knuckled patriarchy—rips away the last disguise, insisting on conjugal rights thicker than blood. The wedding night becomes a crucible: veiled in groom’s burlap, Firefly bolts barefoot across tobacco fields, leaving behind a bridal bonfire of beads and terror. She collides with Donald McDonald, ink-stained editor whose pen once spared governors but now immortalizes stray dogs; mistaking her for a guttersnipe brother, he hires the “boy” to fetch coffee and scandal. Between linotype clatter and courthouse pigeon droppings, Firefly’s heart unfurls like a contraband rose; she loves in silence loud enough to crack type trays. When an avuncular solicitor arrives with deeds and gentle cuffs, Firefly steps into crinolined legitimacy, only to have Vosho erupt from the hedgerows, knives and marital law in tow. Donald—press-pass tucked into bandolier—duels for her autonomy, flinging the gypsy into a cell whose iron smells of yesterday’s justice. Yet cousinly envy springs the jail, and a staged tête-à-tête between editor and secretary ignites Firefly’s doubt; she gallops back to caravan darkness, preferring known chains to suspected betrayals. Donald, paper-boy posse in tow, storms the encampment, recovers his wild star, and finally inks their epilogue in kisses that smell of newsprint and dawn.
Synopsis
A dying stranger abandons a baby girl in a gypsy camp, with a note explaining that on her eighteenth birthday, she is to inherit a Virginia estate. The gypsy chief, aware of the girl's value, instructs Sabia, the tribe's matron, to dress and rear her as a boy. Years later, while the tribe is traveling in Virginia, Vosho, the chief's son, discovers the true sex of the girl, now called Firefly, and demands to marry her. Forced into marriage, Firefly flees from the camp on her wedding night and meets up with Donald McDonald, a local newspaper editor. Donald, thinking that Firefly is a boy, hires her as an errand runner and she soon falls secretly in love with him. Eventually, she unites with her uncle and lives happily on his estate until Vosho shows up to claim her. After a hard fight, Donald rescues Firefly and jails Vosho, who is later freed by Firefly's jealous cousin. When she witnesses a scene between Donald and his secretary, Firefly, convinced that he does not love her, returns to the gypsy camp. With the aid of her uncle, Donald locates Firefly and declares his undivided love for her.
