“But maybe you won’t wake up first, Betsy,” Tacy said as she and Betsy climbed the stairs to the little room Tacy shared with Katie.
“That’s right,” said Betsy. “Maybe I won’t. Maybe we’d better tie a string to my toe too.”
So after they had poked a string … with a stone on one end to make it fall to the ground … through a hole in the screen, and tied the other end of the string to the bedpost, awaiting night and Tacy’s toe, they crossed the street to Betsy’s house. They climbed the stairs to the little room Betsy shared with Julia and poked a string through a hole in that screen and tied the other end to a post of that bed, awaiting night and Betsy’s toe. And that night Julia and Katie helped them tie the strings to their big toes. (Julia and Katie were nice sometimes.)
But, as it happened, neither string got pulled.
Tacy had bad dreams and twisted and turned in the night so that the string was wound around her leg and Betsy would have had to stand on stilts to reach it. And Betsy’s string came off her toe in the night. But both of them woke up early just the same. They met in the middle of the road.
It was very early; the sky was the color of Betsy’s mother’s opal ring. The air was cold, and up on the Hill Street Hill where Betsy and Tacy went to pick flowers for Aunt Dolly, the grass was wet with dew. When their arms were full of goldenrod and bright purple asters, they went down to Hill Street and sat on Tacy’s hitching block. It was too early yet to go to Tib’s.
“I imagine she’ll be beautiful,” said Tacy.
“Of course she will,” said Betsy. “Remember how her picture looked?”
“It looked like a grown-up doll,” said Tacy.
The sun came up higher and higher, and the sky turned a bright gay blue. Smoke began to pour from chimneys, and Grandpa Williams came out to mow his lawn.
“I think we could go to Tib’s now,” said Betsy.
“We’d better,” said Tacy, “or we’ll be called to breakfast.”
So they skipped down Hill Street and through the vacant lot and rapped at Tib’s back door.
Matilda came to the door. She had on an apron and she held a long fork in her hand. She looked busy.
“Tib can’t come out yet. She’s eating breakfast. There’s company,” Matilda said.
Betsy and Tacy looked at each other. There was company! Then there hadn’t been any mistake.
“It’s the company we’ve come to see,” said Betsy.
“We’ve brought her these flowers,” said Tacy.
“We’ve wiped our feet,” said Betsy, and she wiped them again, hard, and so did Tacy.
“Well, wait a minute,” Matilda said.
She went through the swinging door into the dining room. Betsy and Tacy waited.
“You can come in,” Matilda said when she returned.
They followed her into the dining room. The family was at breakfast there. Tib’s father sat at the head of the table with Hobbie in a high chair beside him. Tib’s mother sat at the foot. Tib and Freddie sat on one side of the table; and on the other side, facing them, sat Aunt Dolly.
She was more beautiful than her picture. She was more beautiful even than they had imagined her to be. She had blue eyes like Tib’s and a pink and white face like a doll’s. Her blonde hair was piled in curls on the top of her head.
When Betsy and Tacy entered the room, Tib’s face turned red.
“Come in,” said Tib’s mother in her brisk kind voice. “Matilda says you came to see Aunt Dolly.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Betsy. Her face was shining with excitement.
Tacy didn’t say a word. She was bashful. Tacy wasn’t bashful with Mr. and Mrs. Muller any more, but she was very bashful with Aunt Dolly.
Betsy wasn’t bashful exactly, but she felt queer inside.
“We brought her some flowers,” she said, nodding toward Aunt Dolly.
Aunt Dolly threw back her head and laughed. She had a little tinkling laugh; it sounded like those bells made of glass and painted with strange flowers which hung on the porch at Betsy’s house and chimed when the wind blew.
“Why do you bring flowers to me?” she asked in a tone which showed that she knew the reason perfectly well.
“Because you’re so pretty,” said Betsy, and everyone laughed.
“That’s because I had a grandmother who came from Vienna,” Aunt Dolly said, pushing her soft light curls into place.
“Frederick,” said Mr. Muller. “Where are your manners? Won’t you draw up some chairs for these ladies?”
“Oh,” said Betsy. “We didn’t come to breakfast.”
“Have some coffee cake at least,” said Mrs. Muller. “Matilda will put the flowers in a vase.”
So Matilda put the flowers in a vase, and Freddie brought chairs, and Betsy and Tacy ate coffee cake and looked at Aunt Dolly. Tib and Freddie looked at Betsy and Tacy. The grown-ups talked about Aunt Dolly’s visit, and presently they all finished breakfast and Aunt Dolly stood up.
Betsy and Tacy could see her better then. She was wearing a teagown of pleated white silk, and beneath her small bosom pale blue ribbons were tied.
“I must go to unpack,” she said, patting back a yawn with polished fingertips. “Would you children like to come along and see my clothes?”
“Oh, yes,” said Betsy and Tacy.
“Freddie can tell your mothers where you are,” said Mrs. Muller. “He is going to play with Paul.”
So Freddie went off to tell Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Kelly that Betsy and Tacy would be home after a while, and Betsy and Tacy and Tib followed Aunt Dolly to her room.
Her big trunk stood open, and while Betsy and Tacy and Tib watched, entranced, she lifted out her dresses. She certainly had plenty of dresses! There were morning dresses and afternoon dresses; a dress just for horseback riding and a dress just for bicycle riding and lots of ball gowns.
“Dolly!” said Tib’s mother, laughing. “Did you forget that you were coming to visit in a small Minnesota town?”
“Oh, I knew you’d like to see them,” said Aunt Dolly. “And I like to show them.” And she went off to the bureau and moistened her fingers with perfume and touched the lobes of her ears. “Thank you for the flowers, children,” she said in a tone which showed that she was ready for them to go.
“You’re welcome,” said Betsy and Tacy.
“May I go out to play?” asked Tib.
And Betsy and Tacy and Tib went out to the knoll.
“Well,” asked Tib when they were seated beneath the oak tree. “What do you think?”
“She’s beautiful,” said Betsy.
“Do you think she lives in all those crazy places?” asked Tib. “In the Mirror Palace or up in our S.L.?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering,” said Tacy.
Betsy did not answer right away.
“Not any more she doesn’t,” she said at last.
“What do you mean … ‘not any more’? I don’t understand,” said Tib.
Betsy hesitated. It was hard to explain. The truth was that Aunt Dolly was more thrilling being just what she was, than she would be being anything that Betsy could invent. Was that because she was grown-up?
Tacy knew what Betsy was thinking.
“I wonder what it will be like to be grown-up,” she said.
“I don’t think it will be as nice as being children,” said Tib.
“Neither do I,” said Tacy. “You don’t want to be grown-up, do you, Betsy? At least, not right away.”
Betsy sat still for a long moment and thought. She thought about the fun it was being a child. She thought about the Hill Street Hill, and their bench. She thought about the Big Hill and the ravine and the Secret Lane. She looked up into the green shade of the oak tree and thought about the backyard maple.
“No,” she answered slowly, “I don’t want to be grown-up yet. But I want to be just a little older.”
“You’re nine already,” said Tacy.
“Next year,” said Tib, “we’ll al
l be ten.”
Betsy jumped up joyfully.
“That’s what I’d like to be … ten. You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It’s the beginning of growing up, to get two numbers in your age.”
Tacy and Tib jumped up too, and they started through the vacant lot.
“But what will we do when we are ten?” asked Tib as they climbed Hill Street Hill.
“I suppose we’ll be going to balls,” said Betsy. “I’m planning to have a pale pink satin ball gown.”
“I’ll have a blue one,” said Tacy.
“Mine will have a long train,” said Betsy.
“I’ll carry a big feather fan,” said Tacy.
“But we won’t be going to balls when we are only ten years old,” said Tib.
Tib always said things like that. But Betsy and Tacy liked her just the same.
“We won’t be going to balls, maybe,” said Betsy. “But we’ll have lots of fun, you and me and Tacy.”
And so they did.
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
For KATHLEEN and TESS,
the villains of the piece
Foreword
When I was about nine my mother saw an ad in the paper for a series of books by Maud Hart Lovelace. She showed it to me and asked if I would be interested. She wanted some assurance, I guess, that if she ordered these books I would read them. The ad, from Bambergers department store in Newark, New Jersey, was intriguing. It promised stories about two girls, Betsy and Tacy, who are best friends. So I told my mother, yes, I would like to read them. I understood that this was different than taking books out of the library. If I started a library book and didn’t like it, I could take it back. This was a commitment. We didn’t just go to the bookstore to buy children’s books then, though I was proud of the shelves of grown-up books in our living room. My mother was always reading, usually the latest best-sellers, and my father unwound at night with mysteries. A neat stack of books sat on each of their bedside tables.
Though I owned all the Oz books (and would eventually buy a Nancy Drew mystery each Saturday), I loved our weekly trips downtown to the main branch of the public library, where I climbed a set of rickety outside stairs to get to the children’s room. Once there, I would sit on the floor, sniff the books, and browse. At home, I waited anxiously for the Betsy-Tacy books to arrive. And when they did, I sniffed them to see if they smelled as good as the books I borrowed from the public library. They did. Even better.
I’d always liked to read, but until the Betsy-Tacy books I’d never found stories about girls who were anything like me and my friends. Even though I knew from the start the books took place in the olden days, the characters felt so real it didn’t matter what they wore, or how they fixed their hair, or that they thought a dollar was a lot of money. In fact, I found these details fascinating. I couldn’t wait to read the next book or the one after that, following Betsy Ray’s life. Betsy sometimes made mistakes, she sometimes talked too much. She could be stubborn, or angry, or sad. Best of all, she had a lot of imagination. I totally identified with her. She was a girl who’d been making up stories all her life, just like me. Until then I was sure I was the only one. But unlike Betsy, I never told anyone about my stories. And I never wrote them down, either.
I’d think about Betsy and her friends as I went to bed at night, wondering what would happen next. I didn’t care that they were only five years old at the beginning of the first book. I never felt that I was reading a baby book. Besides, I knew that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were going to grow older in each book. I knew that they’d soon be older than me. And I didn’t want to miss a minute. I needed to know as much about them as I possibly could. I longed to know them as well as they knew each other.
The following year my mother surprised me with the next three books in the series. Now Betsy was a teenager. Given the chance, I’d have jumped right into the pages of those books to share the famous “Sunday Night Lunches” at Betsy’s house. And afterward, to gather around the piano with Betsy and her friends, singing for hours. It seemed to me that Betsy had a perfect life—good friends and a warm, secure, and loving family, where she knew someone was always on her side.
While I didn’t feel the darker undercurrents I sometimes felt in my own family, or even in my own friendships, I still believed in Betsy. I laughed and cried and dreamed with her. I loved those books too much to ever do a book report on them. They weren’t for sharing. They were for keeping deep inside.
Did Betsy inspire me to become a writer? After all, she knew when she was very young that’s exactly what she was going to be when she grew up, and she never changed her mind. But writing wasn’t on my mind when I was reading about her, so I would have to answer, probably not, although who can say where inspiration really comes from?
I don’t know why I didn’t get to read the last three books in the series (Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy’s Wedding) when I was growing up. Surely I would have, if only I’d known about them. I read them recently for the first time. I was nervous as I opened to the first page. What if the stories didn’t hold up well? What if I couldn’t imagine girls today caring about Betsy? But I didn’t have to worry. I was swept into Betsy’s life the way I had been years ago. And by the time I read the final page of the last book, I was crying so hard my husband thought something terrible had happened. I explained it wasn’t sadness that was making me cry—it was finding friends I thought I’d lost.
A whole generation of girls my age came to feel that Betsy was their friend. It’s comforting to know that no matter how many years go by, no matter how different things are today, what’s inside us is still the same. And what makes a good book hasn’t changed either. Some characters become your friends for life. That’s how it was for me with Betsy and Tacy.
—JUDY BLUME
Hills were higher then
—HUGH MAC NAIR KAHLER
1
Getting to Be Ten
ETSY, TACY, AND TIB were nine years old, and they were very anxious to be ten. “You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It’s the beginning of growing up,” Betsy would say.
Then the three of them felt solemn and important and pleased. They could hardly wait for their birthdays.
It was strange that Betsy and Tacy and Tib were in such a hurry to grow up, for they had so much fun being children. Betsy and Tacy lived on Hill Street which ran straight up into a green hill and stopped. The small yellow cottage where Betsy Ray lived was the last house on that side of the street, and the rambling white house opposite where Tacy Kelly lived was the last house on that side. They had the whole hill for a playground. And not just that one green slope. There were hills all around them. Hills like a half-opened fan rose in the east behind Betsy’s house. Beyond the town and across the river where the sun set there were more hills. The name of the town was Deep Valley.
Tib didn’t live on Hill Street. To get to Tib’s house from the place where Betsy and Tacy lived, you went one block down and one block over. (The second block was through a vacant lot.) But Tib lived near enough to come to play with Betsy and Tacy. She came every day.
“They certainly have fun, those three,” Betsy’s mother used to say to Betsy’s father.
They did, too.
Betsy’s big sister Julia played with Tacy’s sister Katie, but they didn’t have so much fun as Betsy and Tacy and Tib had. They were too grown-up. They were twelve.
Betsy’s little sister Margaret, Tacy’s younger brother Paul, and Tib’s yellow-headed brothers, Freddie and Hobbie, had fun all right, but not so much fun as Betsy and Tacy and Tib had. They were too little.
Going on ten seemed to be exactly the right age for having fun. But just the same Betsy and Tacy and Tib wanted to be ten years old.
They were getting near it now. Betsy and Tacy were growing tall, so that their mothers were kept busy lengthening their dresses. Tib wasn’t as tiny as she used to be, but she was still tiny. She still looked like a
picture-book fairy. The three girls had cut their hair when they were eight years old and didn’t know any better, but it had grown out. Tib’s curls once more made a yellow fluff around her little face. Tacy had her long red ringlets and Betsy had her braids again.
“When I’m ten,” said Betsy, “I’m going to cross my braids in back and tie them with ribbons.”
“I’m going to tie my hair at my neck with a big blue bow,” Tacy replied.
“We can’t put it up in pugs quite yet, I suppose,” Betsy said.
“But pretty soon we can,” said Tacy. “On top of our heads.”
Tib did not make plans like that. She never did.
“I only hope,” she said, “that when I get to be ten years old people will stop taking me for a baby.”
For people always thought that Tib was younger than she was. And she didn’t like it a bit.
Tacy got to be ten first because her birthday came in January. They didn’t have many birthday parties at Tacy’s house. There were too many children in the family. Mrs. Kelly would have been giving birthday parties every month in the year, almost, if every child at the Kelly house had had a party every birthday. But when Tacy was ten, Betsy and Tib were invited to supper. There was a cake with candles on it.
Tacy didn’t look any different or feel any different. But she knew why that was. Betsy and Tib weren’t ten yet.
“We’ll all have to get to be ten before it really counts, I suppose,” Tacy said.
Tib got to be ten next because her birthday came in March. Tib didn’t have a birthday party; she had the grippe instead. But she was given a bicycle, and her mother sent pieces of birthday cake over to Betsy and Tacy.
And Tib didn’t look any different or feel any different. But she didn’t expect much change until Betsy got to be ten. And Betsy’s birthday didn’t come until April.
Tacy and Tib didn’t say very much about being ten. They were too polite. They talked about presents and birthday cakes, but they didn’t mention having two numbers in their age. They didn’t talk about beginning to grow up until the afternoon before Betsy’s birthday.
Betsy-Tacy Treasury Page 14
