Betsy-Tacy Treasury

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “Plenty of them. Here’s a picture of the Palace. This is where you’ll live, Tib,” said Betsy.

  “It looks like our post office, only bigger,” Tib remarked.

  “It’s sure to be nice inside,” said Tacy. “You’ll like living there.”

  “‘Speculation,’” continued Betsy, “‘is rife in the capitals of Europe as to whom he will choose as a bride…”’ She paused and her gaze ran down the column.

  “Don’t read to yourself!”

  “What is it?”

  Betsy did not seem to hear. She gave a small squeak of dismay.

  “Oh dear, dear, dear!”

  “What is it?” cried Tacy and Tib.

  “Tib can’t marry him after all! None of us can!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” wailed Betsy, “we’re not of the blood royal.”

  “What does that mean?” Tib demanded.

  “It means we’re commoners.”

  “It means we’re not princesses,” Tacy explained. “He can only marry a princess.”

  “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of,” said Tib. “Oh well! It doesn’t matter. I’ll wear my accordion-pleated dress when I dance my Baby Dance.”

  Betsy and Tacy looked at each other. Their eyes said, “Isn’t that just like Tib?”

  “But now we’ll never see him!” cried Tacy in a tragic voice.

  “Let’s go over to Spain anyhow,” said Betsy. “Let’s be servants in the Palace if we can’t be queen.”

  “You and Tacy wouldn’t be any good as servants,” said Tib. “You can’t cook. I can cook, but I don’t think it’s worth while to go way over there just to cook.”

  They sat in a flat silence.

  “It doesn’t seem right,” Tacy burst out, “that he doesn’t know a thing about us. He ought to know there are such people as us, and that we have a lodge and wear his colors and pin his pictures to our underwaists.”

  “He certainly ought,” Betsy agreed. An idea popped up in her head like a dandelion on a lawn.

  “Let’s write him a letter and tell him!”

  “Betsy!” cried Tacy. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Do people write letters to kings?” asked Tib.

  “If they want to they do. We do,” Betsy said.

  Tacy’s blue eyes began to shine.

  “We’d better do it right now,” she said, “while Julia and Katie aren’t around to catch on what we’re doing.”

  “But we haven’t any paper and pencil,” said Tib.

  “You can run to Mrs. Ekstrom’s house and borrow some,” said Betsy. “Tacy and I will wait right here.”

  Tib didn’t mind going. She ran lots of errands for Betsy and Tacy. She was off now almost as swiftly as one of the little yellow birds which were flying in and out of the blooming wild plum trees.

  When she was gone, Tacy said, “I certainly feel sorry about Tib’s not being queen.”

  “So do I,” said Betsy. “It’s too bad we’re not of the blood royal.”

  “She’d have made a nice queen,” said Tacy, “in that accordion-pleated dress. And I’ve got kind of interested in queens. I wish we could think up another queen game so that Tib could be queen.”

  “Maybe we can,” said Betsy. “There’s a poem about Queen o’ the May. Julia’s reciting it for the School Entertainment. Maybe we can get an idea out of that.”

  They talked about it until Tib came back from Mrs. Ekstrom’s.

  She had a pencil and a tablet of paper, and an envelope too.

  “I told Mrs. Ekstrom we were writing a letter. But I didn’t say who to,” she explained.

  She sat down on one side of Betsy and Tacy sat down on the other. Betsy wrote the heading and the salutation just as she had been taught to do in school. Then she started the letter proper and when she couldn’t think what to say next Tacy or Tib told her. When the letter was finished, it read like this:

  Deep Valley, Minn.

  May 19, 1902.

  King Alphonso the Thirteenth,

  Royal Palace,

  Madrid,

  Spain,

  Europe.

  Dear Sir,—

  We are three little American girls. Our names are Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. We are all in love with you and would like to marry you but we can’t, because we’re not of the blood royal. Tib especially would like to marry you because she has a white accordion-pleated dress that she’s going to wear when she dances the Baby Dance. She looks just like a princess. So we’re sorry. But we’re glad you got to be king. Three cheers for King Alphonso of Spain.

  Yours truly,

  Betsy Ray,

  Tacy Kelly,

  Tib Muller.

  “That’s a fine letter,” said Tib.

  “Tomorrow after school,” planned Tacy, “we’ll walk to the post office and mail it.”

  “We’ll have to take some money out of our banks,” said Betsy. “It will cost quite a lot of money, I imagine, to send a letter to Spain.”

  They put the letter into the envelope and sealed it and addressed it to the King in his Palace, Madrid, Spain, Europe.

  When they had finished they were suddenly very hungry.

  “I’m famished,” said Betsy.

  “I could eat nails,” said Tacy.

  “Let’s have our picnic,” said Tib. And they scrambled over the rocks to that cleft in a big rock where they had left their basket.

  But when they reached the cleft they stared with eyes of wonder and dismay.

  The picnic basket was gone!

  4

  Naifi

  ETSY, TACY, AND TIB all had the same thought … in the same instant too.

  “Julia and Katie!”

  “They were here! They were listening!”

  “They heard us talking about the King of Spain.”

  It was a dark thought that sent a shadow over the golden afternoon. They looked at one another in horror, thinking how they would be teased. It would sound queer, said out loud in public, that they were in love with the King of Spain.

  Tib bounded toward the path.

  “Shall we chase them?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” said Tacy.

  “The sooner we don’t see them the better, I think,” said Betsy gloomily. “Gee whiz!” she added. Betsy very seldom said “Gee whiz!” She was too religious. But it was all she could think of to express her feelings now.

  “Gee whiz!” repeated Tacy. “Gee whitakers!”

  “Double darn!” said Betsy.

  “We could get our lunch back anyway,” said Tib. But neither Betsy nor Tacy paid any attention.

  Tib bounced up and down.

  “Let’s look around,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t them at all. Maybe it was a dog…” She broke off in a squeal. “Look! Look! It is a dog, or something.”

  She dashed down the hill.

  Betsy and Tacy ran around the rock. Halfway down the slope, worrying a basket, there was certainly a shaggy creature, the size of a large dog. But it wasn’t a dog. It had horns.

  “It’s a wild animal, a jungle animal most likely,” Betsy cried.

  “Tib! Come back!” shouted Tacy.

  But Tib continued to run headlong.

  “It’s a goat,” she called back. “And he has our basket.”

  Betsy and Tacy weren’t afraid of a goat. Besides, relief that Julia and Katie did not know their secret brought back their appetites. They ran after Tib who ran fiercely after the goat which bounded on small fleet hoofs over the tussocks of grass. The basket came unfastened, and a red and white fringed cloth flew out like a banner. Sandwiches, cookies, and hard-boiled eggs scattered in all directions.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” panted Betsy and Tacy, pausing to pick them up. Tib did not pause. She chased the goat around some scrub oak trees, behind a clump of the white wild plum. Then…

  “Betsy! Tacy! Betsy! Tacy!” came Tib’s voice, with something in it which caused Betsy and Tacy to drop the sandwiches again and run t
o find her.

  They found her standing face to face with a little girl so strange that she seemed to have stepped out of one of Betsy’s stories. Her dress had a long skirt, like a woman’s, very full, made of faded flowered cloth. She wore earrings like a woman’s too. A scarf was tied over her head. From a rosy-brown face very bright brown eyes darted from Tib to Betsy and Tacy.

  Waving a stick in her hand, she began to talk excitedly. Not Betsy nor Tacy nor Tib could understand a word she said. She ran to the goat which had come to a standstill near by and shook her stick at it. She ran to the basket which he had dropped and then to some sandwiches which lay on the grass and began to pick them up swiftly. When she turned her back, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib could see that her hair hung in long black braids tied in red at the ends. Her shoes were red too, and under her dress she wore bloomers down to her ankles.

  All this time she continued to pour forth a torrent of loud, strange words. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib could not understand one of them but they knew what the little girl was trying to say. She was trying to tell them she was sorry that her goat had spilled their basket.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Betsy.

  “We don’t care a bit,” said Tacy.

  “We don’t mind sandwiches being a little mussed. We often eat them that way,” Tib explained.

  The little girl kept right on saying loudly … they didn’t know what.

  She kept on picking up sandwiches and cookies and hard-boiled eggs, and finally Betsy and Tacy and Tib did the same. At last the lunch was restored to the basket, except one sandwich which the goat had gulped.

  The goat now was as meek as Grandpa Williams’ cow, nibbling the grass and paying no attention to them. The little girl pointed from the goat to the basket and shook her head until her braids swung out.

  “She’s the excitedest person I ever saw,” said Betsy.

  “She can’t speak any English,” Tacy said.

  “Or understand it,” said Tib.

  All three stared at her, and unexpectedly she smiled. She showed white teeth, and dimples flashed in her round rosy-brown face.

  “Isn’t she darling?” cried Betsy. “Let’s invite her to our picnic.”

  “How can we,” asked Tib, “when she can’t understand our language?”

  “I know,” said Tacy.

  She shook out the red and white fringed cloth which she had just rescued and spread it on the grass. Betsy and Tacy took sandwiches and cookies and hard-boiled eggs and arranged them invitingly upon it. Then all three sat down, leaving one side of the cloth empty; and all three pointed from the little girl to the vacant place and back to the little girl again.

  “Have a sandwich,” said Tib, picking up the cleanest one she could find (it wasn’t very clean) and offering it.

  The little girl’s smile gleamed whiter, her dimples flashed deeper than ever. She shook her head. Reaching into her girdle she brought out a chunk of cheese and a piece of a flat round loaf of bread. She sat down at the vacant place, her wide skirts billowing about her.

  They had a picnic.

  Betsy and Tacy had started picnicking when they were five years old, and Tib joined them soon after. They were all ten now, and they had had scores of picnics in the years between. But this was the most adventurous, the strangest, the funniest one they had ever had.

  Trying to find a way to talk with their visitor, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib pointed to the goat.

  “Goat,” they said. “Goat. Goat.”

  The little girl pointed to the goat. She said one word too, and they knew it meant “goat” in her language.

  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib pointed to their sandwiches and to the thin loaf the little girl was eating.

  “Bread,” they said. “Bread. Bread.”

  The little girl pointed to their bread and hers. She said, they were sure, her word for bread.

  A little yellow bird flew out of the white plum blossoms.

  “Bird,” said Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. “Bird. Bird.”

  The little girl said her word for bird. She laughed out loud, and they all laughed. They kept on saying words for a long time.

  “Now we’ll try something hard,” said Betsy. And she jumped up. She pointed to herself. “Betsy,” she said.

  Tacy jumped up and pointed to herself.

  “Tacy,” she said.

  Tib jumped up and pointed to herself.

  “Tib,” she said.

  They did this two or three times.

  Then the little girl got up. She bobbed a small bow. She pointed to herself, and her teeth and dimples flashed.

  “Naifi,” she said. Perhaps Betsy and Tacy and Tib were getting used to the sound of her strange language, but they understood the word. “Naifi,” she repeated. They knew it was her name.

  “Hello, Naifi,” cried Betsy.

  “Hello, Naifi,” cried Tacy, clapping her hands.

  “Hello, Naifi,” cried Tib, jumping up and down.

  “Hel-lo?” said the little girl, as though she were asking a question. She repeated the word several times. “Hel-lo? Hel-lo?”

  Betsy pointed to herself.

  “Say, ‘Hello, Betsy.’”

  “Say, hel-lo, Bett-see,” Naifi said.

  Betsy shook her head. She tried again.

  “Hello, Betsy,” she said, leaving out the “say.”

  This time Naifi got it right.

  “Hel-lo, Bett-see,” she repeated.

  Tacy pointed to herself.

  “Hello, Tacy.”

  “Hel-lo, Ta-cee,” Naifi said.

  “Hello, Tib,” cried Tib.

  “Hel-lo, Tib,” said Naifi, looking very much pleased with herself.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib shouted, “That’s fine!” And “Good for you, Naifi!”

  “Hel-lo, hel-lo, hel-lo,” said Naifi, as though she were practicing.

  They had a lovely time, but at last Naifi sprang up, shaking out her skirts. She pointed to the goat and to the valley, with a stream of her strange, loud words.

  “She means she must go home,” said Betsy. “And we must too. Goodness! Look at the sun!”

  While they were picnicking, the sun had gone halfway down the sky. That meant they must hurry for they were not allowed to stay up on the Big Hill after dark.

  Naifi bobbed her little bob, showing her white teeth and dimples. She picked up her stick and waved it and called to her goat.

  “Hel-lo,” she called in farewell.

  “You mean ‘good-by,’” cried Betsy.

  “Good-by!” “Good-by!” cried Tacy and Tib.

  They stuffed the red and white fringed cloth hurriedly into their basket and started up the hill, talking about Naifi.

  “Is she a Syrian?” asked Tib.

  “She must be,” said Betsy. “She lives in Little Syria.”

  “She must have just come to America,” said Tacy. “The other Syrians all know a little English and they don’t dress like that.”

  “The women wear scarves on their heads when they come selling lace, though,” Betsy said.

  “Did you see her earrings?”

  “And her red shoes?”

  “They were beautiful.”

  “Why doesn’t she come to our school, I wonder,” Betsy asked.

  “The Syrian children go to the Catholic School at the other end of town,” Tacy replied.

  They turned for a last look at the small gay figure, dimmed now by distance. A shadow lay on the valley. Mr. Meecham’s Mansion led the row of little houses like a mother hen leading her chicks … safe home at dusk.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” said Tib. They started climbing again. And presently something drove Naifi out of their minds.

  Fluttering down the hill to meet them came a multitude of newspapers. They came like tumble-weed, blowing lightly about in all directions. With a shock Betsy and Tacy and Tib remembered the King of Spain.

  Again they all had the same thought in the same instant.

  “Our letter!”

  “W
hat became of it?”

  “What did we do with it when we ran after the goat?”

  Nobody remembered. Running up to the rocks, they began to search frantically but they could not find the envelope. Their high ridge had been swept bare by the wind.

  “It was all addressed. Maybe someone will find it and mail it,” Betsy suggested hopefully.

  “It didn’t have a stamp on it, though,” said Tib. “And you said it cost a lot of money to send a letter to Spain.”

  “That’s right,” said Betsy. She stopped still. “Gee whiz!” she said.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Tacy.

  “I hope the wind won’t blow that letter where Julia and Katie can find it.”

  “We’d certainly never hear the last of it,” said Tib.

  Again dread like a cloud darkened the day.

  It was darkening too from other causes. The sun, already low in the west, had dropped into a cloud-made pocket. The hilltop was windy and cold.

  “I’ve got to get home,” said Tib. “I get scolded if I’m not home on time.”

  “I get a pretty hard talking to,” said Betsy.

  “So do I,” said Tacy.

  They ran down the Secret Lane.

  Halfway through it, they met Mrs. Ekstrom with an apron thrown over her head.

  “I was looking for you,” she said. “I was sure I hadn’t seen you come past. Don’t you know it’s time you went home?”

  “We’re hurrying, Mrs. Ekstrom,” Betsy said.

  As they jogged down the Big Hill, they talked again about Naifi.

  “Let’s keep her a secret,” Betsy said.

  “Let’s,” said Tacy.

  “And let’s take the King of Spain’s pictures out of our underwaists,” said Tib, “as long as I can’t be queen.”

  “You can’t be his queen, but you’re going to be a queen,” said Betsy. “Tacy and I are planning it; aren’t we, Tacy? Good-by,” she panted, as their road met the path which led down to her home.

  She raced past the barn and buggy shed where her father was unharnessing Old Mag. She darted among slim young fruit trees which looked chilly now in their pale pink and white finery, and skipped down the brown path dividing the kitchen garden. In the woodshed she paused to catch her breath.

  She went into the kitchen softly, hoping that her late return would go unnoticed. As a matter of fact, it did. Her mother was busy, frying potatoes and listening to Julia rehearse the piece she was going to recite at the School Entertainment.