THE FOLLOWING MORNING, as agreed, Betsy and Tib went to church. Prayer books in their kid-gloved hands, they started off decorously beneath a dull sky.
They went by trolley, an exciting experience for Betsy, although she tried not to show it. Tib, however, did not act superior because she was a city girl.
Betsy was still talking like Julia, and Tib’s elegant manner was, Betsy suspected, not quite her own. Even so, they drew closer and closer to the old loving intimacy as they talked about Tib’s school. The Sem, she called it.
“It’s closed for the holidays. But I’m going to take you to see it. Grosspapa Muller sends me there. All his daughters and granddaughters have gone to Browner.”
“Do you like it?”
“Very much. I like to play basketball and act in the plays. And the girls are nice. They’re rich,” said Tib, “but you’d never know it. We all have to dress conservatively.”
Tib, Betsy thought, looked far from conservative. True she wore her fair hair in a braid, turned up with a ribbon, and only a very little, girlish jewelry. But Tib could not look conservative any more than a goldfinch could. Her hair ribbon was lilac color, and she wore a lilac silk dress beneath the purple coat. Mrs. Muller made Tib’s clothes, and they were charming, but unusual. People called them “Frenchy.” The style was really Viennese. Mrs. Muller’s parents were Bohemians and came from the city of Vienna.
“Do many girls board at the school?” Betsy asked, as the trolley hummed along through streets full of large, comfortable homes set in spacious lawns.
“Yes. There are lots of us day girls, though.”
“I should think it would be fun to board there.”
“It is. I stay overnight with my friends sometimes. The lights blink at nine forty-five and they are called ‘first winks.’ They go off at ten and that’s ‘second winks.’ At ‘first winks’ a tray of crackers and milk is put out on the landing in the dorm for anyone who is hungry, but when I stay we have spreads in the gym, very secret and scary.”
“I can’t imagine your being scared.”
“That’s part of the fun.” Tib laughed. “The boarding pupils, if they are caught, are ‘campused’ for a while…no walks, or trips to town. I’m glad I’m a day girl because I have more freedom. And I certainly need freedom because of Grossmama Hornik.”
“Grossmama Hornik?”
“She has her own ideas about my education. The Horniks and the Mullers,” Tib continued, “are very different. Grosspapa Muller manufactures beer kegs. He is rich and everyone is a little afraid of him. Grossmama Hornik is strict, too, but no one is afraid of her, except Grosspapa Hornik, perhaps. He is a tailor, and they live up over the shop. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re Viennese or what, but they’re gayer. They like dancing and singing and beautiful clothes.”
“I remember Aunt Dolly’s beautiful clothes.”
“Grossmama Hornik wants me to have dancing lessons,” Tib continued, “so I have them from the best teacher in Milwaukee. And Uncle Rudy…he’s Mamma’s brother and Aunt Dolly’s…takes me to concerts and plays. That reminds me, we have tickets for the theatre tonight, you and I.”
“How perfectly thrilling!” cried Betsy. “What are we going to see?”
“Reiterattacke. That’s German. Something about the cavalry. It’s very funny.”
“Will it all be in German?”
“Yes. There’s a German stock company at the Pabst. Uncle Rudy didn’t remember that you don’t understand German, I guess. But I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
“I love the theatre so much,” said Betsy, “that I wouldn’t care if the play was in Chinese. But Tib!” She grasped Tib’s arm suddenly. “It can’t be tonight we are going.”
“Why not?”
Betsy laughed merrily at Tib’s mistake. “It’s Sunday!”
“Yes,” answered Tib, “that’s the night Uncle Rudy got the tickets for, Sunday, the twenty-second.”
Betsy was silent, astonished. She could hardly believe her ears. They were going to the theatre on Sunday. It was certainly Sunday, for they were on their way to church.
Nobody Betsy knew ever went to the theatre on Sunday. The Rays were not straight-laced, but they wouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a thing…any more than they would have danced on that night, or played a game of cards.
For a moment Betsy wondered wildly whether she should refuse to go. Elsie Dinsmore, she remembered, had refused to play the piano on Sunday; she had fallen off the piano stool instead. But Betsy had never thought much of Elsie Dinsmore.
“I’m almost sure,” Betsy thought, “that Papa would say, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do!’”
Tib lifted a gloved finger and rang a bell.
“Here’s where we get off,” she said.
The church with its tall spires was impressive, and they walked up the broad stairs in silence. Inside it was lighted by candles and drenched with color from the stained glass windows. It seemed to be full of prayers, and as Betsy and Tib knelt to add two more, an organ started playing.
Betsy was carried away by the beauty of the service. The voices of the boy sopranos were like angel voices…so high, sweet, and unearthly.
“I wish Julia could hear them,” she thought.
As though in a dream she went through the familiar service, kneeling and rising and making the proper responses. Her heart seemed to open up into one great wish…to be good.
Outdoors again, they found that it had been snowing. Fresh soft snow covered the steps, walks and lawns. It lay in mounds on the lacy branches of the evergreens. Still uplifted by the service, Betsy looked around.
“It seems like a miracle!” she cried.
“We should have worn overshoes.” Tib took off her kid gloves and put them into her pocket. “You’d better do the same,” she advised. “Dampness isn’t good for kid.”
“When the choir sang, I felt as though the heavens were opening,” said Betsy.
“Did you?” asked Tib, looking puzzled but impressed.
She hadn’t really changed, Betsy thought.
Back at home Tib put on a ruffled apron trimmed with pink bows which made her look like a valentine. But she helped Matilda with brisk efficiency. This, too, seemed natural. Tib had known how to cook, sew and bake before either Betsy or Tacy could boil water.
Betsy offered to help, but Tib pushed her out of the kitchen, just as she used to do.
“You…you…Dummkopf,” she said affectionately. “Go away until you are called.”
Feeling agreeably incompetent, Betsy withdrew to their bedroom. She was glad to have a few minutes in which to bring her journal up to date. She wrote a letter home, too, and one to Tacy. Then she was called to the table, and it was a table worth drawing a chair to.
Dinner began with noodle soup and ended with Schaumtorte, piled high with whipped cream. In between were Sauerbraten, with red cabbage and potato dumplings, hot raised biscuits and several kinds of jam.
Mr. Muller had beer. He gave sips to Fred and Hobble and offered one to Betsy.
“It’s bitter,” Tib warned.
“No thanks,” said Betsy, smiling. Going to the theatre on Sunday was, she thought, concession enough to the Romans.
Mrs. Muller said that since they were going to the theatre that night they had better rest. So after dinner they went to their room and while Mr. and Mrs. Muller napped, and Fred and Hobbie looked at the funny papers, Betsy and Tib stretched out on the bed and talked.
Now, for the first time, the bars of strangeness came completely down. Betsy was not acting like anyone else any more, and neither was Tib. They were Betsy and Tib again, mutually adoring. As of old Betsy talked and Tib listened, her blue eyes flatteringly round.
Betsy talked about the Crowd. She showed Tib snapshots of the various boys and girls. Tib knew Tacy, Winona and Tom but almost none of the others.
Tib had not yet started going out with boys.
“That’s odd,” said Betsy, feeling very
worldly. “You’re so pretty and cute.”
“Oh, they like me,” said Tib…not boasting, just telling the truth. “But I don’t know many boys. I take my cousin Heinrich to school dances.”
She was enthralled by Betsy’s picture of Deep Valley gaieties, and Betsy painted with a lavish brush.
She told about Tony with his bushy black hair, his bold eyes and laughing mouth. She told about being in love with him last year, and how strange it was that she had stopped. She described Cab, Dennie, Pin.
“Betsy, you sound terribly popular.”
“Oh, no,” said Betsy with elaborate carelessness. “They just like to come to our house.”
“Oh, that’s it!” Tib replied matter-of-factly, which was not at all the thing to say. But Betsy understood Tib.
She described Joe Willard and told about their feud. She even went up to Olympian heights and described Phil Brandish.
“Brandish?” Tib repeated. “A Phyllis Brandish goes to the Sem.”
“Why, she’s Phil’s twin sister. I knew she went to a boarding school. Do you like her?”
“I don’t know her very well. She’s a junior and she’s…well…different.”
“I know what you mean. So is Phil,” said Betsy. She kicked her heels reflectively in air. “I think Phil Brandish is the most thrilling person in school. I’m not in love with him, but I’d die with joy if he ever paid any attention to me.”
“If you wanted him to, you could make him,” said Tib with utter confidence.
“I wonder,” said Betsy. “I wonder whether I could.”
Mrs. Muller, who had waked from her nap, called in just then to remind the girls to rest. So they stopped talking, and Betsy closed her eyes but her thoughts continued in the path where Tib had set them.
It led, of course, directly into her plan for changing herself.
“I haven’t changed a bit so far,” she admitted. “In fact I’m getting more like myself all the time.”
Yet here in Milwaukee with the aura of Tib’s adulation about her, the idea seemed more practicable than ever. She dreamed about going back to Deep Valley completely, stunningly different, until Mrs. Muller called them to coffee.
The Mullers, like most Milwaukee families, had coffee every afternoon. On Sunday, because of the big dinner, coffee came later and combined itself with supper. The table was spread with cold meats and Kartoffel salat, sweet rolls and cakes and, of course, kuchen.
Before they had finished Uncle Rudy came in. He was tall and slim in impeccably tailored clothes. He had a yellow pompadour, and yellow mustaches, waxed and twisted upward.
Betsy promptly fell in love with Uncle Rudy. She was madly in love, for at least a week.
He was accustomed to it; many women were in love with him. He was a jaunty, carefree young man. He could play the piano, Tib told Betsy, better than Paderewski. He joked with Betsy about not liking the beer that made Milwaukee famous. He sold it on the road. He was the uncle who had sent Tib Schlitz beer calendars, long ago, in Deep Valley.
He drove them to the Pabst in a dashing cutter behind a high stepping horse whose harness was strewn with bells. His auto, he said, was put up for the winter. It was a Steamer, and it took him thirty minutes to get up a head of steam.
“But then it goes like blazes. If you were here in the spring, I’d give you a spin,” he declared, giving Betsy a smile which turned her head completely.
He left them at the Pabst. Betsy was so excited by the festive crowd that she felt almost helpless, but Tib with her usual calm got them safely to their seats. The audience was very well dressed. The women rustled in silk or satin dresses and sparkled with jewels. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. The orchestra played Christmas airs.
“Reiterattacke,” Tib explained, was a military farce. It was full of handsome officers (but not so handsome as Uncle Rudy), clanking swords and sabers, and pink-cheeked girls. The audience laughed uproariously and Betsy laughed, too, even before Tib had a chance to explain the jokes. Tib understood almost all the German, and when her knowledge failed, their neighbors helped them out. During intermission the talk was all in German.
“It doesn’t seem as though we were in America,” Betsy said, looking around.
“Papa,” observed Tib, “thinks Milwaukee isn’t American enough. He and Mamma like it better in Deep Valley. He argues with Grosspapa Muller about it. That is,” Tib added, laughing, “as much as one can argue with Grosspapa Muller.”
“Why can’t one argue with Grosspapa Muller?”
“You’ll see on Christmas Eve.”
13
The Seven Dwarfs
BETSY AND TIB, FRED and Hobble were busy on Monday stringing cranberries for the tree. Mr. Muller was away at his office. He was an architect, and Fred wanted to be an architect, too. He was always sketching town halls and cathedrals on a drawing board like his father’s. Mrs. Muller was doing last minute shopping, and Matilda was busy in the kitchen. The heavenly aroma emanating therefrom was in contrast to her temper.
“She’d better be careful,” Hobbie murmured resentfully, after he had been refused a sixteenth cookie, “The Christkindel comes tonight.”
“The Christkindel?” repeated Betsy, puzzled.
“The fairy Christ child,” Tib explained. “He comes on the twenty-third of December to see whether children have been good. See that you behave today, Betsy Liebchen.”
“He comes again on Christmas Eve to Grosspapa Muller’s,” Hobbie said, fitting a cranberry on his needle with stubby fingers.
“He brings the presents,” Tib explained again.
“But what about Santa Claus?” Betsy demanded.
“He’s called the Christmas Man,” said Tib. “He’s not so important in Milwaukee as he used to be in Deep Valley.”
That night Mr. Muller brought home a Christmas tree. Even though the Mullers were to spend Christmas Eve at Grosspapa Muller’s and Christmas Day at Grosspapa Hornik’s there had to be a tree in their own home. Unlike Santa Claus, Christmas trees seemed to be very important in Milwaukee. The older people were as excited as the children when Mr. Muller carried in his huge fragrant bundle.
The next afternoon, which was Christmas Eve day, all of them trimmed it. They put on candles, and carved wooden toys, and cookies hung on ribbons, and little socks with candies in them, as well as the usual bright balls. They draped the strings of cranberries around the spiraling branches and placed a star angel on the top.
Tib and Fred were very artistic and it was a beautiful tree. They had fun trimming it, too; but it seemed strange to Betsy to be hanging the Mullers’ balls and angels and to think that at home a tree was being trimmed with the dear familiar ornaments…some that she and Tacy had bought on their Christmas shopping trips.
As early twilight gathered outside the windows she thought of the Christmas Eve ritual at home going on without her. She remembered the doll her mother was dressing for Margaret and was swept by homesickness almost as acute as she had suffered at the Taggarts.
But no one suspected it, and it didn’t last. Hobbie made her laugh by shouting, “We must get gedressed for Grosspapa Muller’s.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Muller. “We are expected there at half past five. Dress, and make quick.”
So Betsy brought out her new party dress, the pink silk with daisies in it, and the daisy wreath.
“I’ll fix your hairs for you,” Tib offered.
“Hair, hair, beautiful Dutchman!” Betsy teased, but she was glad to have Tib dress her pompadour and pin on the wreath. Tib was almost as clever as Julia was with Betsy’s silky, hard-to-manage hair.
Tib put her own hair up because this was a party. Her pompadour made a pale golden cloud. She wore a wreath too, and her filmy white dress was trimmed with loops of rosebuds.
“You look just like a fairy tale princess, and you always did,” said Betsy.
Tib lifted her skirts and waltzed about.
Mr. Muller wore his best waistcoat. Mrs. Muller wore a r
ich, dark silk. The boys were dressed in their Sunday suits, with white shirts and carefully knotted ties. They had scrubbed their faces until they were pink, and brushed their blond heads until they shone. Mr. Muller’s face looked like Hobbie’s tonight, full of fun and mischief, all care gone.
Matilda had left to spend the evening with relatives. The hack was waiting in front. Mr. Muller shooed them all out and they drove off to Grosspapa Muller’s. It was a long ride through the spectral winter evening, a ride Betsy was never to forget.
It was memorable just to be outdoors, instead of indoors, on Christmas Eve. And the city was so given over to Christmas that it seemed as though the Christkindel really was abroad. Lighted trees shone through many windows and there were roving groups of singers in the streets. “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.” Their voices came plaintively over the snow.
They passed a small band, four shabby men with trumpets, horn and drums, who were playing raucously, “Du bist wie eine Blume.” Mr. Muller sang with them. He asked the hack driver to stop, and put out his head and cried, “Fröhliche Weihnachten!” which meant “Merry Christmas.” The leader came running, pulling off his cap, and Mr. Muller tossed a coin.
They crossed the frozen river, and went on toward Lake Michigan. The houses grew bigger. Betsy felt as though she were in a dream.
Grosspapa Muller’s house sat on a corner. It was a large gray stone house with wrought iron balconies. There was a carriage house in back. Old Johann lived over that and took care of the horses, Tib explained. All the windows were full of light.
There was a wide lawn, now buried deep in snow.
“In the summer Grosspapa Muller has a row of seven dwarfs on his lawn,” Tib said.
“Each one,” Hobbie added, “has a different colored hat.”
“They are in the basement now. Johann repaints them every winter. I’ll take you down to see them,” Tib promised squeezing Betsy’s hand.
Betsy felt more dream-bound than ever, listening to this talk of seven dwarfs.
The hack drove up to the porte-cochere. It was the first time Betsy had ever alighted at a porte-cochere. A massive carved door hung with a holly wreath was flung open by a smiling servant and the Mullers trooped into a crowded hall.
Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself Page 31
