Betsy-Tacy and Tib

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  Betsy touched Mrs. Muller’s sleeve.

  “Is it time to go in, Mrs. Muller?”

  “Not yet,” Mrs. Muller answered.

  “Right this way,” the man kept on shouting, “to the one and only Flying Lady. She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies! The show’s beginning, folks. Step right up and get your tickets. You can’t afford to miss a moment of this beautiful, educational, inspiring, astounding, spectacular exhibition….”

  Tacy poked Betsy, and Betsy looked at Mrs. Muller sideways. She hated to ask again. But she knew Tacy was worried, and she was worried too. Maybe Mrs. Muller wasn’t listening? Maybe she hadn’t heard what the man had said about the show beginning?

  “Do you s’pose we ought to go in, Mrs. Muller?” she asked.

  “There’s plenty of time,” Mrs. Muller answered.

  The man was pacing up and down now like a lion in a cage.

  “Right this way,” he shouted, “to the one and only Flying Lady! She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies! Don’t run, folks! But hurry just a little! Hurry just a——–”

  Tacy poked Betsy again, a hard jab this time. Betsy knew it wouldn’t be polite to keep on asking Mrs. Muller to go in, so she poked Tib, as a hint that Tib might ask her. Tib said right out loud, “What do you want, Betsy? What are you poking me for?” That was just like Tib. Fortunately Mrs. Muller was ready to go in anyway. She said, “Well, come along, children!”

  She bought the tickets from a lady with golden hair. The lady had three golden teeth too; they were right in front, and they showed when she smiled. She smiled at them all, but especially at Tib, and she said to Mrs. Muller, “She looks as though she could fly herself.” At that Tacy poked Betsy, and Betsy poked Tib, and this time Tib understood what the poke meant, and they all began to laugh.

  There were plenty of seats empty. In fact there were only three or four seats filled. But Betsy and Tacy didn’t mind that. It was fun to be able to choose the seats they wanted. They tried seats in the back of the tent, and they tried seats in the middle, and they tried seats in the very front row.

  “We ought to sit close,” Betsy whispered, “because we’re trying to learn to fly ourselves. We ought to see how she does it.”

  “That’s right,” said Tacy. And Tib thought so too. So they sat down in the very front row.

  The tent was darker than most tents. There were heavy curtains hung all around to make it extra dark. And of course there were curtains concealing the stage. They looked like black velvet.

  Out in front the man was still shouting: “She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies!” Sometimes he said that the show was just beginning. But it didn’t begin. More people came in though; and more, and more.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib finished their popcorn and wiped their fingers on the handkerchiefs which their mothers had pinned to their dresses. They looked around until they had seen everything there was to see. Still the show didn’t begin.

  “When do you think it will begin, Mamma?” asked Tib.

  “Pretty soon,” Mrs. Muller answered.

  And pretty soon it did.

  It began with music which came from behind the curtains. And the music changed everything. It brought magic into the dark tent. The piece being played was a piece Julia played. It was named Narcissus.

  “Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.”

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib took hold of hands.

  The curtains concealing the stage were drawn aside, but the stage was as dark as a cave. It was hung with black draperies, and the music made things mysterious.

  “Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.” Just as Julia played it.

  “Dee, dee

  “Dee, dee….”

  And then something white appeared, parting the black draperies which mistily filled the stage. The something white was rising slowly up. Wings (or arms) were waving in time to the music.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib leaned forward, staring. Their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and they saw that the floating figure was indeed that of a lady. She was dressed in white robes which covered her arms (or wings). Red ringlets like Tacy’s hung down across her shoulders. A bright light shone on her face, but the rest of her was in shadow.

  “Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.”

  She smiled at the people as she flew.

  “Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.”

  Up and down she went, in time to the music.

  And not only up and down, but from side to side of the stage. Betsy squeezed Tacy’s hands, and Tib’s, and Tacy and Tib squeezed back. Their eyes strained through the darkness in order not to miss a movement of the glowing airy figure flying up and down, back and across, to that tune which Julia could play.

  They could have watched for hours, but the show did not last very long. In no time at all the curtains were drawn, the music had stopped, and people were clapping their hands and pushing out of the tent. Mrs. Muller, with Betsy, Tacy and Tib, came out last of all.

  “Did you like it?” Mrs. Muller asked.

  “Oh, yes!” said Betsy and Tacy and Tib. At first that was all they could say.

  Mrs. Muller took them across the street to Heinz’s Restaurant, and each one had a dish of ice cream. It was vanilla ice cream, and they had vanilla wafers with it. They talked about the Flying Lady as they ate.

  “She looked like Tacy, Mamma,” Tib said.

  “Yes, she did,” said Mrs. Muller.

  That made Tacy bashful.

  “I wish it hadn’t been quite so dark,” Betsy said.

  “I think they made it dark on purpose,” Mrs. Muller answered, smiling.

  “I wish they hadn’t,” Betsy said. But she didn’t say why.

  Of course the reason was that if it hadn’t been so dark she and Tacy and Tib could have learned more about flying. Tacy and Tib were thinking the very same thing. But they didn’t discuss that with Mrs. Muller. They doubted that a grown-up would understand.

  They told Mrs. Muller that they had had a nice time, and she took Betsy to her father’s shoe store and Tacy to the office where her father sold sewing machines. Betsy and Tacy and Tib all rode home with their fathers, and they didn’t have a chance to discuss the show with each other, until after supper. Then they met on the bench at the top of Hill Street.

  They had changed out of their best dresses and taken off their shoes and stockings. It was pleasant to sit with their feet in the dewy grass and talk about the Flying Lady.

  “If we look hard,” said Betsy, “maybe we’ll see her flying through the sky.”

  “I’ll bet we will,” said Tacy. “If I could fly, I wouldn’t fly just in a dark old tent.”

  “Neither would I,” said Tib. “I’d go up in the sky and do tricks.”

  They looked all over the sky, but they didn’t see a sign of her. There were no white draperies floating among the pink clouds in the west.

  “That’s funny,” said Betsy, “for a sunset would be such fun to fly in.”

  The Flying Lady did not come, and the sunset faded. It was almost time to go home when they noticed color in the northern sky, far down over the town. Faint music drifted from the same direction. They knew that it came from the Street Fair.

  “My papa and mamma are going there tonight,” Tib said. “My mamma wants my papa to see the Flying Lady.”

  Betsy and Tacy looked at each other in sudden understanding. They spoke almost at once.

  “Of course!” cried Betsy.

  “She’s down there making money!” cried Tacy.

  “She couldn’t be flying up here on the hill,” they explained to Tib, “when she’s flying down there in the tent.”

  “That’s right,” said Tib. “Well, maybe she’ll fly in the sky tomorrow morning.”

  “Let’s come up here early to look,” Betsy said.

  And they all ran home.

  Betsy and Tacy met on the bench right after breakfast and started lo
oking for the Flying Lady. It was a sunshiny sweet-smelling morning, just the kind of a day it would be fun to fly in. The sky was full of little fat chunks of cloud.

  “Marshmallows probably,” said Betsy, “in case she gets hungry.”

  “Or cushions in case she gets tired,” said Tacy.

  They stared faithfully upward.

  They were staring upward so hard that they didn’t see Tib until she called out to them. Then they looked and saw her running up the street. As soon as they saw her, they saw that something was wrong. And sure enough, as she sat down, she said:

  “I know something terrible.”

  “What is it?” Betsy asked.

  “That Flying Lady,” said Tib, “she doesn’t really fly.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Tacy.

  “My papa said so,” said Tib. “He was explaining it at breakfast.”

  And Tib explained it to them.

  The lady was sitting on one end of an iron bar, she said. The bar was like a see-saw. The lady sat on one end and something heavy sat on the other and moved her up and down, over and across.

  “That’s why they kept the tent so dark,” Tib said. “So we couldn’t see the see-saw.”

  There was a moment’s stricken silence.

  But then Betsy jumped up and began to jump up and down.

  “That gives me an idea!” she cried.

  “A show!” cried Tacy, reading her mind.

  “In our buggy shed!” cried Betsy. “We’ll ask my papa to wheel the surrey out, and we’ll cover the window with a gunny sack, to make the buggy shed as dark as that tent was. And we’ll put a see-saw inside …”

  “I know where there’s a lovely plank,” Tacy interrupted.

  “We’ll have a curtain across the middle,” Betsy hurried on. “And we’ll put out chunks of wood for seats. And we’ll ask admission, five pins admission and a penny for the grown-ups. Julia could play Narcissus, but the piano’s too far away.”

  “We could hum it,” Tacy said.

  But Tib had a better plan than that.

  “Tom can play it on his violin,” she said.

  They knew a little boy named Tom who could play the violin. He could play Narcissus.

  “Yes, Tom can play his violin,” said Betsy. “And I’ll stand out in front and shout for people to come. ‘Right this way to the one and only Flying Lady! She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies!’”

  “What will I do?” asked Tib.

  “You’ll sell tickets,” said Betsy. “We’ll paste a strip of gold paper over your front teeth.”

  “Who’ll be the Flying Lady?” Tacy asked nervously.

  “You,” said Betsy. “Because you look just like her. Do you s’pose you can wear one of your sister Mary’s night gowns? After I get through calling out about the show, and Tib gets through selling tickets, we’ll go inside behind the curtain. We’ll sit on the back end of the see-saw, to make you go up and down.”

  Tacy didn’t like the idea any too well.

  But that was what they did, that very day. They gave a Flying Lady show in Betsy’s father’s buggy shed. All the children of Hill Street came, and a few grown-ups. Mrs. Benson, who didn’t have any children of her own, came and paid a nickel.

  And Betsy shouted out in front, “Right this way to the one and only Flying Lady. She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies.” And Tib took tickets, showing her gold teeth all she could. And the little boy named Tom played Narcissus on his violin. He played it beautifully.

  They gave a wonderful show but there was one unfortunate incident. Betsy and Tib made Tacy’s end of the see-saw go so high that Tacy got scared. She clutched the plank and cried, “Stop! Stop! I’m falling!” And of course a few rude children laughed, but most of them applauded.

  After that show Betsy and Tacy and Tib stopped trying to fly. They never tried to fly again.

  4

  The House in Tib’s Basement

  BETSY, TACY and Tib didn’t always play on Hill Street. Sometimes they played at Tib’s house, over on Pleasant Street.

  They loved to play at Tib’s house for they thought it very beautiful with its chocolate color and its tower and the panes of colored glass in the front door.

  They loved especially to play in Tib’s basement.

  At Betsy’s house there wasn’t any basement. There was only a cellar. Her father opened a trap door in the kitchen and took a stub of candle and went down and came back with apples which were kept there in a barrel, or perhaps a jug of cider. At Tacy’s house it was much the same. But at Tib’s house there was a basement.

  It was floored with cement, and it was warm and dry and sunny. In the center was a strange contrivance called a furnace, which heated Tib’s house. This was the only furnace in Deep Valley. In the basement also there were tubs for washing clothes. There were closets where glass jars full of pickles and jellies were stored. And there was a great open space where wood was piled, stacked in long orderly rows.

  One day just before school began Betsy and Tacy came over to play with Tib. They wiped their feet hard on the mat at Tib’s back door, for Tib’s house was very clean. After they had wiped their feet hard, they rapped and the hired girl came to the door.

  “Hello,” said Betsy. “We came over to play with Tib.”

  “Hello,” said the hired girl. Her name was Matilda. She was old and wore glasses and had graying yellow braids wound round and round her head. “Have you wiped your feet?” she asked, looking down at their shoes.

  “Yes, we have,” said Betsy.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” said Matilda, “for Tib is down in the basement. And there’s such a mess there; it couldn’t be worse.”

  “What kind of a mess?” Betsy asked eagerly, and Tacy’s blue eyes began to dance. A mess! That sounded like fun.

  “Go see for yourselves,” said Matilda. “You can go down the outside way.”

  The two sloping doors which admitted from the outside of the house to the basement were flung open. Betsy and Tacy scampered down the stairs. And down in the basement they did indeed find a mess. A beautiful mess!

  The winter’s supply of wood had been thrown into the basement but it had not yet been piled; it had just been thrown in helter skelter. There seemed to be an ocean of wood, and rising like islands were two small yellow heads, belonging to Tib and her little brother Freddie.

  Tib had two brothers, but the one named Hobbie was hardly more than a baby. Frederick was Paul’s age; he was old enough to play with; and like Tib he was good natured and easy to play with.

  “We’re building a house out of wood,” he shouted now, as Betsy and Tacy waded joyfully in.

  “Come on and help!” cried Tib.

  Betsy and Tacy took off their hats and helped.

  They piled the wood just the way Tib and Freddie told them to. For Tib and Freddie were good at building houses; their father was an architect. This house they were building was like a real house. It was wonderful.

  It was big enough to sit down in. It was even big enough to stand up in, if you didn’t stand too straight. It had a window, and a doorway you could walk through, if you stooped only a little.

  They found some boards and laid them across the top for a roof.

  “Now it can’t rain in,” Betsy said.

  They worked so hard that they grew warm and sticky and dirty and very tired. But it was such fun that they were amazed when they heard the whistles blowing for twelve o’clock.

  “Oh, dear, we must go home for dinner,” Betsy said. “But we’ll hurry back.”

  “We’ll eat fast,” Tacy said.

  “We’ll eat fast too,” said Tib, and she and Freddie hurried up the stairs.

  Betsy and Tacy ran all the way home to their dinners.

  “Mercy goodness, what’s the matter?” asked Betsy’s mother when Betsy ran into the house. “Your cheeks are like fire.”

  “Oh, Mamma!” cried Betsy. “We’re having such fun. We’re buildin
g a house in Tib’s basement.”

  “When can we move in?” asked Betsy’s father, who was already eating his dinner with Margaret in the high chair beside him. Betsy’s father loved to joke.

  Betsy washed her hands and face and sat down opposite Julia. She thought she ate her dinner quicker than a wink but she wasn’t quite through when she heard Tacy yoo-hooing from her hitching block. Tacy’s mother wouldn’t let her come over to the Rays’ house when they were eating a meal. She didn’t think it was polite. So Tacy always waited on the hitching block. But she yoo-hooed once in a while.

  Betsy gobbled her peach pie and gulped her milk.

  “It’s Julia’s turn to wipe the dishes. ’xcuse me?” she asked, jumping up.

  Her braids flew out behind her as she vanished through the door. She and Tacy took hold of hands and ran down Hill Street.

  As fast as they had been, Tib and Freddie were in the basement before them.

  “We have to hurry,” Tib explained, “for a man is coming at four o’clock to pile this wood.”

  “And we won’t have a house any more,” Freddie said, as though he didn’t like it.

  “It’s a long time ’til four o’clock,” Betsy said.

  “Where’d you get the carpet?” Tacy asked.

  “Our mamma gave it to us,” Tib and Freddie answered proudly.

  It was a beautiful carpet. It was red with yellow roses in it. They spread it down inside their house and placed chunks of wood for chairs.

  When they had finished they sat down inside their house. There was room for all, although it was crowded. Tib didn’t mind if Freddie put his feet in her lap. Betsy and Tacy didn’t mind being squeezed against each other.

  “Has your funny paper come?” Betsy asked.

  Tib’s father’s paper came all the way from Milwaukee. There was a Sunday edition, and that had a funny paper in it.

  “Yes, it came today,” said Tib, and she ran upstairs to get it.

  They squeezed into their little house again, and Betsy read the funny paper out loud, all about Buster Brown and Alphonse and Gaston and the Katzenjammer Kids. Matilda came down to visit them, bringing some coffee cake. (Butter and sugar and cinnamon were pleasantly mixed on the top.)