Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “As you know,” she continued, “eight students have competed, two from each high school year. Freshmen are judged together, sophomores are judged together, and juniors, and seniors. That is our attempt to make the Contest perfectly fair. We think you increase in knowledge and ability as you go on through high school.” (Laughter.)

  “I will announce the class awards in turn, and at the end the total number of points piled up for each society. First, the freshmen.” She paused, and Betsy blushed. She glanced swiftly at Joe Willard’s cocky blond head, his handsome determined-looking profile.

  “The freshmen contestants, as you all know, are Joe Willard and Betsy Ray. Both are excellent English students. The one who gained the freshman points is…” She paused and smiled while a wave of subdued laughter and exclamations of anxiety swept across the hall. A whispered chant came from the alcove:

  “Betsy, Betsy, Betsy.”

  A similar chant rolled from the opposite wall:

  “Joe, Joe, Joe.”

  “The winner of the freshman points,” Miss Bangeter repeated, “is Joe Willard.”

  Betsy was stunned. So for a moment were the Zetamathians. Automatically she found herself smiling. She found herself applauding frenziedly as Joe Willard, looking both poised and abashed, rose and sat down again. The Philomathians cheered and applauded so enthusiastically that he had to stand up a second time. Betsy applauded too and even turned her radiant smile toward the alcove.

  Tacy was not applauding. She was shaking her fist at Joe Willard. She was joking, of course; and yet she meant it too. Cab and Tony had taken out big white handkerchiefs and were pretending to be weeping.

  Betsy felt as though she were in a dream. Her ears were ringing, and the events that went forward on the stage seemed unreal. The other winners were named in turn. The final scores were announced. The Philomathians won the cup. It was presented to the Philomathian president.

  Before joining her surprised indignant Crowd, Betsy sought out Joe Willard.

  “Congratulations,” she said, putting out her hand. “I’m sure your essay was wonderful.”

  For once Joe’s blue eyes were friendly.

  “Got just what you deserved,” he said. “You should have let me walk home with you that night.”

  Of course, as usual, Betsy blushed.

  Betsy did not sleep very well that night. The next morning she woke up so early that even Anna was not about. She dressed and went softly out of the house. If she had still lived on Hill Street, she would have gone up on the hill. As it was, she sat on the porch steps, but it was nice there. The dawn colors were still in the sky above the German Catholic College. The lawn was brushed with silver, and the birds were so bold, so abundant…it seemed as though they knew that for this hour they owned the world.

  Betsy was ashamed of herself. She was deeply and thoroughly ashamed. This feeling had nothing to do with her hurt pride. And its deepest cause was not the disappointment of her family, her friends, Miss Clarke. That had been loyally masked with assertions that “it doesn’t matter anyway,” “you’ll show them next year,” “the judges were crazy.” Her mother especially was sure that the judges had taken leave of their senses. But in her father’s eyes Betsy had seen the opinion that the judges had shown excellent judgment. It was this view, shared by Betsy herself, which troubled her now.

  “Maybe, of course,” she thought, “Joe Willard writes better than I do. And if he does, that’s all right. The world is probably full of people who write better than I do.” (She doubted it.) “What makes me feel bad is that I didn’t give myself a chance.”

  When Julia had a part in a home talent play, her social life went by the board. If she had a solo to sing, she practised it, even though she neglected everything else.

  “That’s the way my writing ought to be treated,” Betsy thought.

  She looked back over the crowded winter. She did not regret it. But she should not have let its fun, its troubles, its excitements squeeze her writing out.

  “If I treat my writing like that,” she told herself, “it may go away entirely.”

  The thought appalled her. What would life be like without her writing? Writing filled her life with beauty and mystery, gave it purpose…and promise.

  “Everyone has something, probably. With Julia it’s singing, with Anna, it’s cooking, with Carney and Bonnie, it’s keeping house and having families…something that’s most important of all because it’s theirs to do.”

  She jumped up and went down the steps and started walking.

  She walked down High Street, past the high school, and on and on, trying to beat out on the sidewalk her angry self reproach.

  “Help me to straighten this thing out!” she said to God. “Please, please, help me to straighten this thing out!”

  Presently she found herself tired, hungry, happy and knowing exactly what to do. She turned and hurried toward home.

  The house smelled of coffee now. Anna was in the kitchen. Betsy burst in smiling.

  “You’re out early, lovey. Hungry?”

  “Starved! What’s for breakfast?”

  “Bacon and eggs.”

  “Bacon and eggs! They’re just what I want,” Betsy cried. “Anna,” she said, “will you do something for me after breakfast?”

  “Sure, lovey! What is it?”

  “That old trunk in the attic, that big square trunk of my Uncle Keith’s. I want you to help me bring it down.”

  “Where you going to put it?”

  “In my bedroom,” Betsy said.

  “In your pretty blue bedroom?” Anna demanded. “It won’t look nice there, lovey. There’s plenty in that room already.”

  “That trunk’s going in,” said Betsy, “if everything else goes out.” She walked around the kitchen smiling. “Gee, I’m hungry! I could eat nails.”

  “Strike the gong,” said Anna. “And as soon as the dishes are done, we’ll move that trunk.”

  No one in the Ray family made any comment when Uncle Keith’s trunk came back to Betsy’s room. Her mother found a shawl with which to cover it when it wasn’t being used as a desk…the very same shawl that had covered it on Hill Street. Margaret came in to sit on it, looking pleased. Betsy brought her Bible and prayer book, a dictionary and the volume of Poe, a pile of freshly sharpened pencils and what notebooks she could lay her hands on.

  “Stand up, Margaret,” she said. “I’m going to arrange the tray. And I’m going to buy a whole pile of new notebooks as soon as Commencement is over.”

  29

  The Hill

  AND NOW COMMENCEMENT week was in full swing, along with a burst of Minnesota heat. Betsy had trouble keeping her hair in curl for the class play, Class Day and all the other festivities.

  The chorus was rehearsing daily in the Opera House where Commencement exercises would be held. Betsy and Tacy wandered behind the scenes, reminding each other of the time they had played in Rip Van Winkle and discovered Uncle Keith.

  Commencement night came, and Julia in the pink silk dress sang, “An Open Secret.”

  “Pussy willow has a secret,” she sang, leaning toward her audience, almost acting the words out.

  Betsy in the canary-colored silk, Tacy in pale green mull sang that their hearts were in the highlands.

  “I almost sang ‘My heart’s in the high school’” Tacy giggled, walking home.

  “So did I. I started to, even. Let’s sing it now.”

  They sang it, arms entwined, walking home along the dark streets. “My heart’s in the hi-i-igh school…”

  “There’s no one I can be so silly with as I can with you,” said Tacy.

  Report cards were issued next day, and they both passed. Betsy Ray: algebra, 75; Latin 78; ancient history, 91; composition, 92.

  Mr. Gaston infuriated the class by telling them that they must read Ivanhoe over the summer. Betsy had read it, but she didn’t say so. She acted as cross as everyone else.

  That night, the night before the Humphreys left,
The Crowd was invited to the Ray house.

  “I want to make it like all the other parties we’ve had this year,” Betsy planned.

  But she couldn’t. It was far too warm for a fire in the grate. Doors and windows were open, and the porch was hung with baskets full of daisies and geraniums and long trailing vines. A hammock swung there too.

  They sang the old songs, though. Julia played the piano as usual and The Crowd, with arms locked, stood behind her. They sang “My Wild Irish Rose,” and “Crocodile Isle,” and “Cause I’m Lonesome,” and “Dreaming.” Julia made Welsh rarebit in the chafing dish.

  Herbert and Cab disappeared from the party, and soon Margaret came running into the dining room to say that everyone should come to the music room to see a show.

  “I’m to say that it’s for Larry and Carney,” she announced.

  Herbert in Mrs. Ray’s best silk dress and Anna’s big feathered hat leaned over the stairs pretending to be Juliet, while Cab, wearing Julia’s new cape and strumming on a pot cover was Romeo, serenading. They were very funny, and it did everyone good, especially Larry and Carney.

  “Anna wouldn’t have loaned that hat to anyone but you,” Betsy told Herbert. “Her heart is broken because you’re going away.”

  “Maybe I’ll get a little of her cooking now,” said Cab.

  “No,” interposed Tony, “I’m stepping into Humphreys’ shoes.”

  When The Crowd left Tony stayed behind. Mr. and Mrs. Ray had already retired.

  “Betsy and I are going to do the dishes,” Tony said. “My first step toward getting in with Anna.”

  “I can take a hint. Good night,” said Julia. She blew them a kiss and went upstairs.

  Tony washed and Betsy wiped. Tony was good at washing. He scraped and rinsed and stacked the dishes before he began, and kept a kettle of hot water boiling.

  “You’re the most efficient lazy person I ever knew,” said Betsy.

  They talked about the Humphreys’ going, and about how sad it was to see The Crowd break up, and about what they would do next year with Bonnie and Larry and Herbert all gone.

  “So long as the Ray family doesn’t move away, I’ll do all right,” Tony said.

  The dishes finished, they went into the dining room, the parlor, the music room. They put them all in order. It was strange to be alone with Tony in the deserted downstairs with the family asleep above. Not asleep, exactly. Her mother would come into her room to talk the party over. But there wasn’t a sound anywhere in the house.

  Betsy and Tony went out on the porch and sat down in the hammock.

  The night was very warm and soft; stars spangled the sky behind the German Catholic College. The air was sweet with the smell of syringa bushes from the house next door. Tony’s rough sleeve touched Betsy’s arm. She was wearing the short-sleeved canary-colored silk. They pushed the swing and rocked slowly back and forth.

  And suddenly it came to Betsy with electric force that she wasn’t in love with Tony any more. She liked him, she liked him enormously, but if Cab, or Herbert, or Pin had been sitting in the swing beside her, she would have felt no differently.

  Thinking back she realized that this had been true for some time. Not for weeks had there been any magic in the sight of that curly thatch, those bold black eyes, that lazy sauntering walk. The feeling she had had was gone; it had vanished; it just wasn’t, any more.

  “Tony,” said Betsy. “I’m so happy.”

  “So am I,” said Tony. His tone was caressing and he moved his arm slightly as though with a little encouragement he might become sentimental. Betsy jumped up.

  “Will you come over in the morning to help me make fudge? I promised Herbie a box for the train.”

  “Sure,” said Tony. “It will give me a chance to see my new inamorata, Anna.”

  Betsy laughed.

  “I’m glad you have an inamorata, Tony. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m fancy free.”

  The Humphreys left for California the next day, and half of Deep Valley was at the station. Mr. and Mrs. Ray and all the High Fly Whist Club were there to say good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Humphreys. Larry’s and Herbert’s crowd was there, and the football crowd, and some of the teachers, and a delegation of business men.

  “Everything but the band,” Tony remarked.

  “And a band wouldn’t do. We’re too sad,” Betsy said.

  “Remember to write to me, all you kids,” said Herbert.

  Larry held Carney by the arm. They didn’t talk or joke. And when the four-forty-five moved out of the station with the Humphreys on the observation platform, Betsy slipped her arm through one of Carney’s arms, and Tacy took the other.

  This, thought Betsy impressively, closes a chapter in our lives.

  She didn’t say it, for it sounded sad, and she wanted to comfort Carney.

  For several days she devoted herself to comforting Carney. Bonnie, she knew, could have done it better. But Betsy did her best. She went to the Sibleys’ every afternoon and Carney played the piano, classical pieces, while Betsy listened. Curled in Mr. Sibley’s chair, Betsy read out loud while Carney sewed.

  Letters from Larry came from St. Paul, from Omaha, from Santa Fe. There were picture postals from Herbert, too, for Betsy. Indians, the Grand Canyon, and at last the orange trees and poinsettias of California.

  “I really must go out to visit Grandma,” Betsy thought, sticking these alluring post cards into her mirror.

  One afternoon Tacy telephoned.

  “Mamma’s baking cake for supper. That kind you like, without any frosting on it.”

  “I get your point,” said Betsy. “I’ll be there. Walk down to meet me; will you?”

  “I’ll meet you at Lincoln Park.”

  It was mid-June now, and very hot. Betsy wore her pink lawn jumper, the one she had worn, she remembered, when she went to the Majestic and saw Cab chopping wood, the day Anna came, almost a year ago. She carried the same pink parasol and walked slowly through the heat.

  Tacy met her, and they locked their damp arms.

  “Gee, I’m glad to see you,” Tacy said. “I’ve missed you since school ended.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” said Betsy. “I’m going to come up to Hill Street lots this summer.”

  “Are you going out to that farm again?”

  “The Taggarts? I don’t know.” She had a sudden smothering memory of her homesickness. “I wonder whether I’d be homesick if I went again? Probably not. I’m so much older.”

  She did feel unbelievably older.

  And Hill Street emphasized the change. They stopped at almost every house, to talk with the old neighbors, pat familiar dogs, exclaim over children who had put on inches and acquired big front teeth. All the neighbors exclaimed that Betsy was a real young lady.

  Mr. and Mrs. Kelly said they couldn’t get over how she had changed.

  “I haven’t changed inside,” said Betsy. “I’d like to eat supper up on our bench.”

  “Oh, let’s!” cried Tacy. “May we, Mamma?”

  “Papa,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Fix a plate for each of them.”

  So Mr. Kelly filled Tacy’s plate, and Betsy’s. And they each took a glass of milk and a piece of Mrs. Kelly’s cake, still warm from the oven. Laughed at by the family and laughing at each other, they walked carefully out of the house and up the road to the bench at the top of Hill Street.

  Hill Street looked very green and fresh with sprinklers running and roses in bloom. The sun was setting behind Tacy’s house.

  “Just where it ought to set,” said Betsy. “It hasn’t set in the right place since I left Hill Street. Oh, Tacy, it’s wonderful to be back!”

  And yet, even as she spoke, she knew that she did not wish to come back, not to stay, not to live. She loved the little yellow cottage more than she loved any place on earth, but she was through with it except in her memories.

  She thought of the High Street house which had looked so bare at first on its windy corner. It was still a little ba
re, although now the vines Mr. Ray had transplanted from Hill Street covered it with their familiar pattern, and baskets full of flowers hung around the porch and shrubs were set out. It was bare, but it was full of the things that make a house, a home.

  How many songs the music room had echoed to! How many onion sandwiches had been eaten on Sunday nights around the fireplace! The brass bowl in the big front window looked like High Street, not Hill Street. Uncle Keith’s trunk still seemed out of place in her bedroom, but it was a challenge there.

  In the High Street house she had fallen in love and out of it again. She would never forget Tony kissing her under the mistletoe even though now, to her continued amazement, he was just like anyone else…all the magic gone.

  On the steps of the High Street house she had met her disappointment after the Essay Contest. She thought suddenly about Joe Willard. He had never been inside her house…yet.

  She and Tacy sat looking down Hill Street while the clouds in the sky behind Tacy’s house turned pink. Their hands met and as always, unfailingly, joined in a loyal clasp.

  Betsy in Spite of Herself

  For

  ROSEMOND and ROMIE LUNDQUIST

  This above all: to thine own self be true,

  And it must follow, as the night the day,

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

  —WM. SHAKESPEARE

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Betsy in Spite of Herself

  1. The Winding Hall of Fate

  2. Dree-eee-eaming

  3. Ivanhoe

  4. More Ivanhoe

  5. Septemberish

  6. The Moorish Café

  7. The Man of Mystery

  8. Rosy Apple Blossoms

  9. Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson

  10. A Letter from Mrs. Muller

  11. Tib

  12. Sunday in Milwaukee

  13. The Seven Dwarfs

  14. The Brave Little Tailor

  15. A Week of Christmases

  16. Betsy into Betsye

  17. The Leap Year Dance