Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  The school rose, and boys and girls released pent-up excitement in song that shook the rafters.

  “Mine eyes have seen the glory,

  Of the coming of the lord…”

  The school sat, and Miss Bangeter read a Psalm. She read from the Bible every morning, and Betsy looked forward to this moment, to Miss Bangeter’s grave voice intoning the majestic poetry. Today’s psalm was one she liked especially, because it had hills in it:

  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.”

  The school joined in repeating the Lord’s Prayer.

  After opening exercises Betsy and Tacy made the rounds of the classrooms to register for Latin, geometry, modern history and rhetoric and find out what books they were to buy.

  Mr. Morse who taught Latin was impassive; he seemed never to have seen them before although he had taught them Latin grammar last year…or hoped he had. He told them to buy the Commentaries of Caesar.

  Miss O’Rourke who had suffered them through algebra welcomed them to geometry with breezy friendliness. She was curly-haired, merry-eyed, pretty, but strict. Betsy and Tacy, well aware of their deficiencies, shuddered under her genial gaze.

  Miss Clarke who taught history was anything but strict. The students hailed her with affectionate condescension. She was Zetamathian faculty adviser, and relied on Betsy a great deal in society affairs. If Mr. Gaston, as Betsy had claimed, did not appreciate her talents, Miss Clarke more than made up for the lack. Even Mrs. Ray, even Tacy, was no more generous with praise.

  They passed on to Mr. Gaston’s room. He had not yet come in, but shortly Joe Willard came in. He held his head at a challenging angle which matched the swing of his walk and the confident almost defiant slant of his red lower lip.

  Joe Willard was the only boy in high school without a home. He was different from the other boys, but he didn’t seem to mind it. He was even dressed differently, Betsy noticed. All last year he had worn a blue serge suit. This year he wore blue serge trousers, but his coat was light brown. No boys wore coats and pants that did not match, but Joe Willard did, today.

  And they looked all right. Perhaps because they were so carefully pressed, or perhaps because he was so handsome. His summer tan made his blond pompadour look even blonder, and his blue eyes bluer below his thick light brows.

  He did not glance at Betsy, but when she went over to him he smiled.

  “How come you didn’t show up in Butternut Center?” he asked.

  “I didn’t visit the Taggarts this year. We went to the lake.”

  “You shouldn’t have missed Butternut Center,” he said. “There was a runaway on the Fourth of July and a funeral on August the second.”

  “Wasn’t there a church social?”

  “Come to think of it, there was. Cocoanut cake. If you’d been there I’d have bought you a piece.”

  To her annoyance Betsy blushed. She was given to blushing, especially with Joe Willard. The pink ran down to her high, white, lace-edged collar.

  “Read Ivanhoe?” she asked hastily.

  “Of course. Why?” He sounded puzzled.

  “Don’t you remember? Gaston told us to read it over the summer. None of the kids have read it. They’re having fits.”

  “You’ve read it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. But I’m not admitting it.”

  He looked at her keenly.

  “You wouldn’t!” he said.

  Now what did he mean by that? Betsy wondered, blushing again. Did he know she was so dissatisfied with herself that she was always pretending to be different? Probably he did, and despised her for it. More than anyone she knew, Joe Willard was always, fearlessly, himself.

  Tacy interrupted, hissing tragically. “There he comes, the brute.”

  Mr. Gaston entered and strode to his desk. He was a dark, sardonic-looking young man with thick, un-rimmed glasses. He took the roll call briskly, announced the list of books to buy. Then he looked around and grinned.

  “You remember, of course, that tomorrow you take a test on Ivanhoe?”

  Cab and Tony conferred in whispers, with more and frantic whispers interjected by Tacy, Alice, Irma and Winona. Then Cab rose. He took a jaunty stance, his hands in his pockets.

  “You’re joking, aren’t you, Mr. Gaston. You didn’t seriously mean that we were to read five hundred and thirty-four pages…over vacation?”

  Mr. Gaston looked more sardonic than ever.

  “Why, Cab, reading Ivanhoe’s a pleasure.”

  “Yes, sir, but don’t you think it might be a good idea to give the test next week? In case some of us haven’t had time to finish the book?”

  Mr. Gaston gazed at him coldly.

  “I’m teaching this class, young man. The test will be given tomorrow. I hope you’ve finished it?”

  “I read page five hundred and thirty-four last night,” said Cab, and winked at Betsy and sat down.

  “Class dismissed. Ivanhoe tomorrow.” Mr. Gaston said.

  4

  More Ivanhoe

  IVANHOE AND MR. GASTON notwithstanding, the Crowd went to the Majestic that afternoon.

  Alice had finished the novel, and Tacy had only a hundred pages left. Winona was cheerfully resigned to flunking. “I’ll flunk plenty of tests before the year’s over.”

  “I’ve read parts of it,” said Irma. She didn’t seem too worried. Perhaps she thought that even Mr. Gaston was not impervious to her soft-eyed charm.

  Tony didn’t seem too worried either, but Cab’s air was reckless. It troubled Betsy.

  “Really, Cab, I think you’d better stay at home and read.”

  “Can’t. My father thinks I’ve finished the noble work.”

  “Then come over to our house and read.”

  “While the rest of you see Raffles? Not much!”

  So after dinner the Crowd went together to Cook’s Book Store to buy books and then proceeded to that other store which, not many years before, by means of red and yellow paint and a flamboyant sign had become the Majestic Theatre, a High Class Place of Amusement, with Up to Date Moving Picture Entertainment, Especially for Ladies and Children. Admission 10¢.

  In the afternoon, to the satisfaction of the Crowd, admission was only five cents. Paying their nickels they filed in to one of the rows of hard seats. On the screen up front, flickering, silent figures acted out the adventures of Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman. Afterwards a girl played the piano and sang. The verses were illustrated by garishly colored slides.

  “Shine, little glow worm, glimmer,

  Shine, little glow worm, glimmer…”

  The Crowd hummed under its collective breath.

  Repairing to Heinz’s, to the small mirror-walled room in back of the bakery which was labelled Ice Cream Parlor, it did more than hum. It sang, banged, whistled, shouted from one small table to another as though across a football field. Mr. Heinz was indulgent. He appreciated the devotion…and the nickels…of high school boys and girls. Ivanhoe was forgotten in Banana Splits and Deep Valley Specials, and at parting Cab said to Betsy:

  “See you tonight.”

  “You will not see me tonight. You read Ivanhoe tonight.”

  “I’ll read it after I get home. Midnight oil, you know. The family will be in bed, and I’ll pore over the noble work beside my shaded lamp…”

  He was fooling, but he was anxious. Betsy knew it; Cab’s father could be stern.

  She wanted to turn him out when he came that evening, but Hugh had dropped in, and Tony, and Tom with his violin. And they all had to leave at ten o’clock sharp. Mrs. Ray said so.

  Julia kept them all around the piano, somewhat to Hugh’s annoyance. He could see that her feeling for him had cooled and wanted to find out why, but Julia couldn’t tell him, not knowing herself, and so she avoided a tête-a-tête.

  “Now go home and read Ivanhoe,” Betsy hissed to Cab at ten o’clock.

  “Maybe,” put in Tony, “he’d do better in the morning not knowing a lick of Ivanhoe but having his
wits about him.”

  “Maybe in the morning I’ll have an inspired idea.”

  “You’re dippy,” Betsy said, shutting the door.

  She dreamed about Ivanhoe that night. She woke dreaming about it, and went to the bookcase for her well-worn copy and brought it back to bed. She had not admitted it, but she loved the book. She had read it countless times.

  She grew so interested now that she read past the breakfast gong. She dressed like a flash then, but when she reached the table even Julia was there and Mr. Ray was almost ready to leave for the store.

  “I’m sorry, Papa. I was looking over Ivanhoe.”

  “Ivanhoe! Ivanhoe!” said Mr. Ray. “The way the Deep Valley High School treats the classics!” He went around the table stiffly, kissing good-by.

  But he unbent before departing for Tacy came in and her opening cry made him smile.

  “I’ve finished Ivanhoe!”

  “Tacy,” said Mr. Ray, “how is your father bearing up under this?”

  “He says he wishes Sir Walter Scott had never been born,” Tacy replied.

  A burst of song sounded from the porch. Tony and Cab were ascending, their arms across each other’s shoulders, singing in harmony to the tune of “Tammany.”

  “Ivanhoe,

  Ivanhoe…”

  “Let me out of here,” said Mr. Ray, and made a dash for the street.

  Tony and Cab came in smiling.

  “Nothing like a good night’s sleep,” said Cab, rubbing his hands.

  “We had that inspired idea,” Tony said. “Both of us. Same idea.”

  “What is it, for goodness’ sake?”

  Tony searched though his pockets for a pad of paper and a pencil, and Cab too brought out writing materials with a businesslike air.

  “We thought,” Cab explained, “we might sit here and take notes. We thought that while you were finishing breakfast you might chat a little about the noble work.”

  “Just give us the high points,” Tony said.

  Betsy stared at them and began to laugh. Everyone laughed.

  “Stars in the sky!” cried Anna. “This Ivanhoe! What is it, anyway?”

  “It’s a story, Anna. Betsy’s going to tell it to us in a few well chosen words.”

  “Well, I’m going to listen,” said Anna, and sat down, dish towel in hand.

  Betsy gulped her cocoa and put the cup aside. She folded her hands on the table then, and Cab and Tony took chairs opposite and stared hard, as though by looking at that curly beribboned head they could absorb its precious knowledge of Scott’s masterpiece.

  “Well,” began Betsy, and paused. She thought of Joe Willard and took a deep breath and started again. “I have to say something that will shock you. It’s a perfectly grand book.”

  “What?” Cab and Tony cried together.

  “Perfectly grand. If you don’t say so, Gaston will know you haven’t read it, because you couldn’t read it without liking it.”

  Tony looked at her sharply. “You’re not fooling?”

  Cab wrote down on his pad of paper, “Perfectly grand.”

  Betsy decided to begin where Scott had.

  “It begins,” she said, “in that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the River Don.”

  Tony put down his pencil. “You are fooling!”

  “No really. That’s the first sentence. It opens in a forest with a swineherd named Gurth, and Wamba, son of Witless….”

  “See here, Betsy! In ten minutes we can only hit the high spots.”

  “All right,” said Betsy, yielding. It saddened her that Cab and Tony should not know about Gurth and Wamba, and the meeting with the Pryor. She felt she was cheating them, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “The important characters,” she said, “are Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a knight, returned from the Crusades; Rowena, the girl he’s in love with; Cedric, her guardian, who disapproves; Rebecca, a girl who’s in love with Ivanhoe; and some assorted villains.”

  “Fine!” said Tony. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “King Richard’s in it, too. He went to the Crusades, and left England in charge of his brother Prince John, who’s a crook. Richard comes back to see what’s going on, disguised as the Black Knight. He comes to the tournament and on the second day when Ivanhoe is fighting three men at once….”

  “A good fight?” asked Cab, leaning forward.

  “Just the best one ever written, that’s all.” Betsy’s cheeks flamed. She told the story of the tournament and told it so well that Anna leaned across the table, breathing hard, Tacy’s eyes sparkled and the boys forgot to scribble notes.

  “Betsy,” said her mother. “You’ll be late for school.”

  They went out to an almost empty High Street with Betsy still talking, Tacy, Cab, and Tony now hanging on every word.

  “Does Prince John give in, and admit that Ivanhoe won?”

  “Yes, and Ivanhoe chooses Rowena to be Queen of Beauty.”

  “Do they live happily ever after, then?”

  “Heavens, no! She’s kidnapped, and so is Rebecca. They’re held captive in a castle, with Ivanhoe, and the Black Knight storms it.”

  They dropped down on the school steps, and Betsy kept on talking. The first gong rang and they moved slowly toward the upper hall where Betsy continued to talk until the second gong clanged.

  “Anything else?”

  “Remember the bad feeling between the Normans and Saxons.”

  “What happens to Rebecca?”

  “She goes into a convent.”

  “Sounds like quite a tale,” drawled Tony, returning his notes to his pocket.

  “Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Rowena, Cedric, Rebecca…” muttered Cab.

  Tacy took Betsy’s arm. “It was wonderful the way you told it, Betsy.” And then Tacy too started muttering, “Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Rowena, Cedric, Rebecca…”

  All through the morning, whenever Betsy looked toward Tacy, Tony or Cab she saw them muttering.

  Mr. Gaston greeted the rhetoric class with a glance derisively bland. He gave the next day’s assignment, ignored the frantic whispering going on all over the room, and said casually: “Now I want each one of you to write me an essay on Ivanhoe.”

  He leaned back in his chair and unfolded a scientific journal.

  Betsy swept a glance around the room. Tony, Cab and Tacy were all muttering. Joe Willard looked as he had looked before he set to work on the Essay Contest last year. His paper, ink, and pen were ready and he was brushing his fingers thoughtfully over his yellow hair.

  Betsy smiled at her paper. What a delightful assignment! What fun to write an essay on her beloved Ivanhoe! She dipped her pen in ink.

  She began where she had tried to begin before, and now there were no Tony or Cab to cry, “Just give us the high spots, Betsy!” She told all about Gurth and Wamba and descibed the Lady Rowena’s beauty and Ivanhoe’s mysterious coming and the arrival of Rebecca and her father.

  The clock said that half the allotted time was gone, so she hurried on to the tournament. She tried to make spears ring in her prose as they rang in Sir Walter’s. Now and then she almost thought she succeeded.

  Looking up dreamily, she saw that Tony and Cab had already finished. Joe Willard still had his pen in his hand, but he was reading what he had written. Mr. Gaston had closed his magazine. He was tapping the desk and looking at the clock, obviously impatient.

  Betsy rushed for the finish, scattering blots. But Rowena and Rebecca were still captive, the story hung in the air like a bright banner, when the gong sounded and Mr. Gaston said:

  “You may leave your papers on my desk as you go out.”

  Betsy was sorry she had not finished, but after all, she reflected, panting and warm from her attempt, Mr. Gaston would certainly see that she knew her Ivanhoe. It was nice what she had said about those silvery spears: and the part about Rowena’s hair. Even Sir Walter Scott hadn’t thought to compare it to maple syrup.

  “How did you get alon
g?” she asked Cab anxiously.

  “I think I did the noble work justice.”

  “Mine was a masterpiece,” said Tony.

  “Mine was all right, too,” said Tacy.

  Betsy sighed in proud relief.

  It was two days before Mr. Gaston returned the papers. And during those two days Ivanhoe continued to possess the Ray household.

  “If Washington should have kittens…but he won’t, because he’s a boy…I’d name one Ivanhoe and one Rowena,” Margaret said.

  Mr. Ray heard about Betsy’s fifteen-minute condensation of the masterpiece with a chuckle.

  “I wonder how Cab and Tony will come out?”

  “I think they will get Fair at least,” Betsy said. Mr. Gaston marked his papers Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor.

  When the class filed in on the third morning the papers were piled on his desk. After roll call he tapped them condescendingly.

  “These essays on Ivanhoe weren’t bad,” he said. “Really, they weren’t bad at all! Three of them are marked ‘Excellent,’ and from a class of the mentality of this one, that’s pretty good.” Mr. Gaston liked to make that sort of joke.

  Three “Excellents!” Betsy, without thinking, flashed Joe Willard a glance. She intercepted one from him, and they both smiled. Both felt sure where two Excellents had gone, but what about the third one?

  “None of you,” Mr. Gaston continued, “will be surprised to hear that one ‘Excellent’ went to Joe. But the other two may startle you. They did me.”

  He smiled mockingly.

  “Tony and Cab,” he said, “drew ‘Excellents,’ too.”

  To say that the class was startled was putting it mildly. Tony and Cab grinned from ear to ear. Tacy threw up her hands in pantomime to Betsy.

  “Tony and Cab,” Mr. Gaston continued, “turned in essays that showed they had read the book. I must admit, Cab, that when you told me you had finished it, I had my doubts. But you and Tony obviously had not only read Ivanhoe. You had digested it. Therefore, your papers are brief, concise. You just…” Mr. Gaston’s smile for once was genuinely approving, “you just hit the high spots.”