Heaven to Betsy / Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  Carney received this sparkling reply without a smile, which was odd, and the note that Betsy presently received from Herbert was also strangely sober.

  “I’ll call for you early tonight. Something to tell you. H. Humphreys.”

  “I wonder what’s up?” Betsy thought.

  When Herbert arrived, Mr. Ray was out rolling his newly seeded lawn. And Betsy coming down the steps, hatless, her hands thrust into the pockets of her light spring coat, was deeply startled by what she heard.

  “Yes, I saw your father,” Mr. Ray was saying. “He told me about the move to California.”

  “California!” Betsy ran down the walk.

  “It’s true,” Herbert said. “We’re clearing out, just as soon as school is over. We’re going out to San Diego to live.”

  Betsy was aghast. First Bonnie, now Larry and Herbert! The Crowd could not survive this second blow.

  “How perfectly awful!” she cried.

  “Isn’t it?” asked Herbert. Yet there was discernible in his bright blue eyes the stirrings of adventurous interest. “Dad says California’s fine, though. No winter, which is tough, but there’s swimming in the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Betsy’s grandparents live in San Diego,” Mr. Ray said.

  “Gee, Betsy, come out to visit them and I’ll show you around.”

  They developed this idea as they walked through the spring twilight to Carney’s. Betsy was quite intoxicated with the notion of seeing orange trees, poinsettias, the mountains and the Pacific in Herbert’s company.

  “It won’t be for a couple of years, probably. We’ll be so grown up we’ll hardly know each other.”

  “I’ll bet you’ll still blush when I call you Little Poetess,” Herbert said. “Do you know, Betsy, I was in love with you in fifth grade?”

  “You were?” Betsy was amazed. “Why all the girls were crazy about you.”

  “Well, you certainly had me going. You wore a locket and you used to swing it when you studied.”

  Betsy started to say, “I guess I’ll buy myself another locket.” But her sidelong glance showed his eyes brimming with mischief. She remembered how much more fun he was when he wasn’t in love, and changed her mind.

  “Now you’re my C.F.,” she said. “And I want lots of letters. All about the California girls.”

  They were having such a good time that their “hellos” at the Sibleys’ side lawn were completely cheerful. Herbert went to the giant pile of leaves already burning in the driveway and Carney came to meet Betsy.

  “I see that Herbert hasn’t told you,” she said looking at Betsy’s smiling face. Betsy felt a disloyal pang.

  “Yes, he has,” she said sobering. “Isn’t it awful?”

  “Awful,” repeated Carney, not a trace of dimple showing. “Awful doesn’t describe it. I think it’s cruel of Mr. Humphreys, absolutely cruel. What does he have to go to California for? Isn’t Minnesota all right?”

  Larry joined them, his face a thunder cloud. Here was no glimmer of the adventurous zest Herbert had shown. He took Carney’s hand, which startled Betsy for a moment. Larry and Carney “went together” and had since seventh grade but they weren’t spoony. Carney detested spoony girls.

  Now, however, her hand closed around Larry’s. Without speaking they went back to the fire.

  If it were Tony going away, I’d feel like that too, thought Betsy, and glanced toward his lounging figure.

  Carney’s small brothers were bringing wheelbarrows full of leaves to feed the flames. The fire crackled briskly and threw out a brazen heat. The smell of the smoke brought back to Betsy bygone Hill Street springs.

  “I must be getting very old,” she thought, “the way things remind me of things.”

  When the fire had burned low the boys piled on branches from trees Mr. Sibley had been trimming, and when these in turn were reduced to embers they toasted marshmallows on pointed sticks. Spreading coats and blankets, they sat down around the fire and now it was the time for singing. They came at last to “Dreaming.”

  “Dreaming, dreaming,

  Of you sweetheart I am dreaming,

  Dreaming of days when you loved me best…”

  Tony was sitting near Betsy singing in his deep rich voice. She expected the melody to flood her heart as usual with melancholy memories, but it didn’t somehow. She glanced toward Larry and Carney.

  Boldly Larry held Carney’s hand in his, and they didn’t even try to sing. Carney sat stiff and straight, like a hurt child.

  The imminent departure of the Humphreys for California was very, very sad. But at least it meant another rash of parties. One day it was suddenly, alarmingly, the tenth of May and the following day would bring the Essay Contest.

  “Are you well prepared, Betsy?” asked Miss Clarke after school, looking a little anxious.

  “Oh, yes,” said Betsy. “I’m going down to the library though to check on a few facts.”

  Miss Sparrow looked anxious too.

  “You haven’t done much reading, Betsy. Do you have some books on the Philippines at home?”

  “No,” said Betsy. “But I’ve talked with my father. And I’m going to work a while right now.”

  She went through the stalls to the table reserved for the contestants. Seniors, juniors and sophomores were there, reading with frenzied concentration. But not Joe Willard.

  “He knows all there is to know about the Philippines,” thought Betsy with a sinking heart. She skimmed through the big books aimlessly. “Oh, well,” she thought. “I’ll get by on my writing.” But Joe Willard, she remembered, wrote very well indeed.

  Tacy who called for her cheered her as they walked homeward.

  “You can write circles around Joe Willard,” she said.

  “Oh, sure, sure,” said Betsy. “I ought to know a few more facts though.”

  “Just skim lightly over the facts,” Tacy advised. “Your essay will be so interesting that the judges can’t put it down.”

  Julia at the supper table took the same attitude. Mr. Ray had asked Betsy some questions about the Philippines, receiving evasive answers.

  “Betsy writes so well, Papa. She doesn’t need to know those dull old dates.”

  “Betsy,” said Mrs. Ray, “has been writing since she could hold a pencil. I remember her when she was five years old asking me how to spell ‘going down the street.’”

  “Ja, Betsy will win all right,” remarked Anna, clearing the plates. “Maybe you’d better take coffee with your breakfast, lovey, like on Sunday mornings?”

  “I believe some coffee would be a good idea,” said Betsy importantly, “but I don’t have a qualm about the contest. Not a qualm.” She spent the evening going over her notes. There were gaps, alarming gaps in her information.

  Cab came over, but she did not see him. Herbert telephoned but she did not talk. Tony arrived but she did not even go downstairs.

  Tony…she could hear from upstairs…wanted to sing.

  “I’m afraid we’d disturb Betsy,” she heard Julia say. “She’s concentrating on the Philippines. It can’t really be necessary, though. She’s sure to win.”

  Tony laughed. “I told Joe Willard today he might as well be buying some black crepe for his hat band.”

  “What did he say?” asked Julia.

  “He only grinned.”

  Betsy didn’t like the sound of that. She slapped her notebook shut, wound her hair on Magic Wavers, and went to bed.

  “Sleep is what I need,” she thought. “With a good night’s sleep I can write better than anyone in Deep Valley High School.”

  And she had a fair night’s sleep although, she told the family at breakfast, she dreamed about Aguinaldo. Her father said he was glad to hear that she knew there was such a person but the rest of the family was impressed. When Margaret asked Betsy to help with her hair ribbon, Mrs. Ray told her not to bother Betsy; Betsy had something important on her mind. Anna brought her coffee, and although Betsy always combined it with so much sugar and cream t
hat its stimulus was diluted, it did her good to drink it.

  “Here I go,” said Betsy. “Joe Willard, watch out!”

  She snatched up a hat and a pen, and ran outdoors.

  It seemed strange to be going to school on Saturday morning. Children were playing on all the lilac-scented lawns. It had rained last night, but today the sun was out, and the air was filled with moist sweetness.

  The high school, of course, was deserted. But Miss Clarke and Miss O’Rourke were waiting in the upper hall, behind a small table.

  “All notes and books must be left here,” Miss Clarke said.

  “I haven’t any with me,” Betsy answered smiling.

  “That’s right,” Miss Clarke beamed. “Go into the algebra classroom. You will find paper on the desk, but don’t start to write until the bell rings.”

  Betsy found two seniors, two juniors and two sophomores in the classroom.

  “I wonder where Joe Willard is,” she said to herself. “I should think he’d like to get here in time to collect his thoughts a little.”

  But it was exactly one minute to nine when Joe Willard sauntered in. He walked up to the desk and helped himself liberally to foolscap, then walked back to a desk in the corner and ran his fingers over his yellow hair.

  Miss Clarke and Miss O’Rourke came in and closed the door.

  “When the bell rings,” said Miss O’Rourke, “you may start to write. And you must stop at twelve o’clock. If you finish sooner, put your essay on the desk and go out quietly. The subject, as you all know, is ‘The Philippines: Their Present and Future Value.’”

  As she spoke the last word, a gong sounded. Eight boys and girls dipped their pens in ink.

  First Betsy wrote the title, “The Philippines: Their Present and Future Value.” She puzzled a moment about what to write next. Miss Clarke had advised that she think out her opening paragraph in advance but she had not done this, being a great believer in the inspiration of the moment.

  And inspiration did not betray her. As always when she took a pen or pencil in her hand, inspiration cast a golden light. A flowery opening paragraph soon found its way to paper, the final sentence leading, just as it should, into a second paragraph.

  But unfortunately today she could not write entirely by the light of inspiration. Her essay was supposed to have a solid core of knowledge based on six weeks’ study. Instead of going happily where her fancy led, she was obliged in every paragraph to conceal the absence of facts. History was padded with legends that happened to stick in her mind. For exports and imports she substituted descriptions of orchids and volcanoes and sunsets on Manila Bay. It took ingenuity. It took thought. It took time.

  At eleven o’clock Joe Willard rose, strolled to the front of the room and laid his paper on Miss O’Rourke’s desk. There was a slight swagger in his walk. Closing the door he looked back over his still struggling colleagues. Betsy felt sure that he had not intended it so, but his gaze met hers.

  “He is positive, sure, he’s going to win,” she thought. “Well, so am I.” And in desperation she put in some snappy conversation between Aguinaldo and Commodore Dewey. It livened up the essay a good bit.

  Except for Joe Willard, everyone wrote until twelve o’clock. The gong rang then and somewhat soberly the contestants took their papers up to the desk and filed out. Two weeks would pass before it was known which society had won. The cup would be awarded and the winners of the class points announced at the term’s last assembly.

  “Satisfied, Betsy?” Miss Clarke asked.

  Betsy nodded brightly.

  “We certainly are lucky that you are a Zetamathian,” Miss Clarke said. But Betsy’s homeward walk was slower than usual and considerably more subdued.

  28

  Results

  BUT SHE RAN UP the steps of home smiling.

  “Fine! Fine!” she replied to all family queries about how the Essay Contest had gone. At dinner she described the events of the morning dramatically.

  “So this Willard boy ran out of things to write about at eleven o’clock, did he?” her mother asked.

  “It really wasn’t fair,” said Julia, “to put anyone up against Betsy.”

  “Hail the conquering heroine!” said Tony when he dropped in that afternoon.

  In a little while Betsy forgot the misgivings which had filled her at Joe Willard’s departing gaze. Everyone from Miss Clarke to Margaret was convinced that she had safely won the freshman points; she began to believe it herself.

  There was little time to think of the matter, however, for again examinations were upon her. Betsy and Cab took up the greeting she and Tacy had originally evolved.

  “Hic, haec, hoc,” he would cry from the front door every morning.

  “Hujus, hujus, hujus,” Betsy would respond from within.

  “Huic, huic, huic,” they chorused together. “Who says Latin isn’t spoken familiarly now?”

  “I’d like to get hold of the fiend who invented algebra,” Betsy groaned to Tacy as, well fortified with fudge, they studied after school.

  Composition did not worry her, but she read the ancient history from cover to cover.

  “It’s extremely interesting,” she remarked in surprise. Studying, as she had done all year, only the paragraph she expected to be called on to discuss, she had missed the immense, moving sweep of the narrative.

  Julia was even more desperate then Betsy. She was not only faced with examinations. She was singing a solo for Commencement. “An Open Secret,” it was called, and she practised it from morning until night.

  “Pussy willow has a secret,” Julia warbled, and in Betsy’s mind Pussy Willow’s secret was mixed up with Latin conjugations, algebraic equations and the Punic Wars. It added to her confusion on all these topics.

  The chorus, in which Betsy and Tacy sang, was also preparing a number for Commencement:

  “My heart’s in the highlands,

  My heart is not here.

  My heart’s in the highlands,

  Achasing the deer.”

  Betsy and Tacy had their private version.

  “My heart’s in the high school,

  My heart is not here.

  My heart’s in the high school,

  Achasing my dear.”

  This was supposed to refer to Betsy’s infatuation for Tony, and Betsy and Tacy considered it gloriously funny. When they had studied until they were groggy, and Betsy was walking halfway home with Tacy through the late afternoon, they sang it:

  “My heart’s in the hi-i-i-i-gh school

  My heart is not he-e-e-re…”

  The light green world of May echoed to delirious laughter.

  Examinations began. These were followed by daily indignation meetings at the Ray house.

  “How could Morse be so beastly?”

  “How can O’Rourke look so pretty and give such hideous exams?”

  Larry and Carney alone were not concerned about exams. They did not even seem to care whether they passed.

  “The Time, the Place and the Girl” came to Deep Valley. Carney was allowed to go with Larry…in the evening…alone. Sympathetic parents hoped this would afford a measure of consolation. The Humphreys were leaving for California on the day after the day after Commencement.

  The first event of Commencement week was the joint evening meeting of Philomathians and Zetamathians at which the essay cup would be awarded.

  Which society had won the cup was still unknown to all except the judges. There was no doubt, however, in the minds of those around Betsy about the freshman points, and by this time there was no doubt in Betsy’s mind either. That feeling she had had was crazy. Of course she would win.

  The eight contestants were to sit on the platform along with Miss Bangeter, Miss Clarke, Miss O’Rourke and the presidents of the two societies. The four who had received the most points would rise when the cup was awarded.

  “I’m glad you have your canary-colored silk to wear tonight, Betsy,” Mrs. Ray said. “Since you have
to stand up and bow.”

  “Let me do your hair,” said Julia. They hurried upstairs after supper, and Margaret looked on while Julia worked.

  Katie, Tacy and Alice called for them.

  “See these new gloves? I wore them just so I could split them clapping for you,” Tacy said. “Gee, you look nice!”

  Betsy’s cheeks were burning. The canary-colored dress fitted to perfection, and her pompadour stood up like a fan.

  The assembly room was divided between Philomathians and Zetamathians, and the Zetamathians this year had the alcove side. This was most desirable, for on these evening meetings boys and girls were allowed to perch on the bookcases.

  The Crowd, parting from Betsy, rushed for them. Betsy hurried to the platform. Four Philomathians, their president and Miss O’Rourke, four Zetamathians, their president and Miss Clarke, flanked Miss Bangeter’s tall table. Betsy sat opposite Joe Willard. They smiled at each other.

  The crowded assembly room looked gayer than usual, for the Zetamathians wore streamers of turquoise blue; the Philomathians were decked with orange. Defiant chants were hurled first from one side of the room and then the other.

  “Zet! Zet! Zetamathian!”

  “Philo! Philo! Philomathian!”

  Tony sat with Winona, Pin and the Humphreys on the Philomathian side. Tacy sat on a bookcase with the crowd of Zetamathians; all of them were eating peanuts. First one and then another waved to Betsy, or threw kisses, or clapped hands softly high in the air. Betsy did not respond except by smiling. She sat with her hands folded, her ankles crossed.

  Tall and benign, Miss Bangeter called the meeting to order. The high school song was sung, and the opening ceremonies, minutes of previous meeting, announcements and reports ran their usual course.

  “And now,” said Miss Bangeter, “we come to the main event of the evening, the awarding of the Essay Cup.” She indicated a table on which three silver cups were prominently displayed. One was tied with an orange bow, one with turquoise blue. The Essay cup stood in the center, unmarked.