Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “The brave little tailor,” Betsy thought.

  She said it to Tib after dinner and Tib answered, “Grosspapa is a very good American, even though he can’t speak English. And Grossmama is proud that he was a Forty-eighter, although she would never admit it.”

  The older people went to take naps, and Uncle Rudy asked Betsy and Tib whether they would like to go skating.

  “I’m giving all my girls the go-by on account of you,” he said, winking at Betsy.

  Fred and Hobbie wanted to go, too, and they all piled into the cutter and drove to the Mullers’ house for skates and on to the river. Betsy, a very poor skater, was silently thankful that she hadn’t brought skates to Milwaukee. She refused firmly, although politely to borrow any.

  “I’ll just adore watching,” she said. And she did.

  For the sun glittered on the ice, a band was playing, and the skaters moved merrily in time to the music. Many glances followed Tib and Fred waltzing together. They made a charming pair for they looked much alike and moved like one person. They stayed until the sun, a round red eye without a single lash, dropped suddenly below the river bank.

  Back at Grossmama Hornik’s they were all soon eating again. Coffee was made, sandwiches were set out, along with the inevitable kuchen. Uncle Rudy and Aunt Dolly didn’t eat with the others. They were going to a Christmas ball.

  “Let’s watch Aunt Dolly dress,” Tib proposed. “She won’t mind. I often do.” So they went upstairs and knocked on her door, and she called them in.

  Her room was all in white and pale yellow. The curtains were white over yellow, the bedspread was white over yellow. There were dozens of small yellow cushions tossed about and a snowy white fur rug.

  There were mirrors everywhere. Wherever Aunt Dolly looked she was sure to see her own exquisite reflection. There was a tall, three-sided, pier glass, and an adjustable mirror on her dressing table.

  Before this Aunt Dolly now was putting the finishing touches to her toilet: She was wearing a low-cut, green satin ball gown. She had fastened jewels into her ears, and around her neck and wrists. She looked charming, but she gazed into the mirror with a dissatisfied expression.

  “This green,” she said, petulantly, “makes me look as yellow as cheese.” Casually she opened a drawer of the dressing table and took out a round cake of something pink. She took out a soft object, a rabbit’s foot, and rubbed it across the pink cake. Then slowly, with complete concentration, she tinted her round cheeks, and the tips of her ears and her chin, which was dimpled like her father’s.

  For the second time since coming to Milwaukee Betsy was completely astonished. First, the theatre on Sunday, and now this! A hot tide swept up her body coloring her face more vividly than Aunt Dolly was being colored with the rabbit’s foot. The blush came partly from embarrassment. It must be, she thought, that Aunt Dolly had forgotten her presence. If she were going to…paint her face like an actress…she would certainly do it only when she was alone. Betsy didn’t know which way to look, and by chance she looked at Tib. Tib was watching Aunt Dolly, and her expression was one of mild interest.

  “I’ll be glad when I can use that stuff,” she said.

  “Ach, you’re too young!” Aunt Dolly put down the rabbit’s foot. She picked up a hand mirror for intensive study, took up the rabbit’s foot again and gave her dimpled chin another dab.

  Betsy’s horror was tempered now with a thrill of self-importance. She had seen rouge used, and not by an actress! She could tell her mother and Julia about it.

  Aunt Dolly sprayed herself with perfume, and rose. She turned, inch by inch, before the pier glass. She took up a fan, a lace handkerchief, and a small silken bag…it was called a vanity bag…which she slipped by its cord over her wrist. She handed Tib her white opera cloak and floated out of the room.

  Ferdy and Uncle Rudy were waiting in the drawing room. Ferdy’s face flushed when he saw Aunt Dolly. Both he and Uncle Rudy had changed into evening clothes, and Uncle Rudy, Betsy thought, looked dazzlingly handsome.

  He sat down at the grand piano, throwing the tails of his black coat clear and ran his fingers along the keys.

  “I’ve a new waltz I want Mamma to hear. She talks so often of the great Strauss. Here is a piece as good as any of his and it is also by a Viennese.”

  He began to play.

  The opening phrases were short and artless. They sounded like a rocking horse. But the swing began to grow longer, the rhythm stronger. The waltz began to ask questions, wistful, poignant. It took on a dreamier sweep.

  Then a gayer theme sent Uncle Rudy’s fingers rippling over the keys. The melody wove in and out. It circled, swayed, as though it were music and dancer in one. It was irresistible.

  Aunt Dolly threw her train over her arm. She smiled that sweet sudden smile like her father’s, and asked Ferdy to dance. Tib motioned to Betsy but she shook her head and they both sat silent, watching. Fred, too, was motionless but he smiled as though in his mind he followed every undulating curve.

  Grossmama Hornik turned her stately head slowly in time to the music. Grosspapa Hornik and Mr. Muller slowly waved their steins.

  “What is the name of it?” Betsy asked Tib breathlessly, after it was over.

  Uncle Rudy spoke over his shoulder. “It’s ‘The Merry Widow Waltz,’” he said.

  That night, in bed, before she fell asleep, Betsy chuckled.

  “What are you laughing at?” Tib asked.

  “I’m thinking of the presents I’m going to take home. I’m certainly going to surprise people.”

  “What are you going to take?” Tib asked drowsily.

  Betsy chuckled again.

  “A fairy book to Margaret. And it must have The Brave Little Tailor in it, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And ‘The Merry Widow’ to Julia. And a stein for Papa. And for Mamma…” her mirth shook the bed…“a rabbit’s foot.”

  “I don’t see what’s so funny. I think they sound very nice,” said Tib as she dropped off to sleep.

  15

  A Week of Christmases

  CHRISTMAS DAY WAS OVER, four days of her visit were gone, and Betsy had not yet begun to change.

  “I must get started,” she thought, lying in bed, waiting for Tib to wake up. “I want to be so completely different by the time I go back to Deep Valley. Of course, I’ve been busy with Christmas. But that’s over now…”

  Little she knew!

  “Everyone’s coming here for the Second Christmas Day,” Mrs. Muller said at breakfast.

  “Where are we going for the Third Christmas Day?”

  “What is planned for the Fourth Christmas Day?”

  Betsy listened in bewilderment. “How many Christmas Days do you have, for goodness’ sake?” she demanded, and everyone laughed.

  “New Year’s puts a stop to them,” Mr. Muller said.

  The reason for this week of Christmases was clear. It would have been impossible in any lesser period to exhaust the holiday spirit which foamed in the city by the lake. Everyone must see everyone else’s tree, and these visits of tree-inspection were virtual parties, with coffee and a great display of kuchen. Betsy learned to recognize a few different kinds…Pfeffernüsse, Sterne, Kipfel…but some of the most delicious had names she never mastered. She and Tib were not able to attend all these gatherings…too much must be crammed into two short weeks…but Fred and Hobbie reported on the kuchen every night.

  Betsy reflected sometimes on how different Tib’s life was from her own. Here the telephone did not ring all day. There wasn’t perpetually a crowd of boys and girls around. But that did not mean Tib’s life was empty. It was crowded with uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents…and with other interests which the rapidly passing days revealed.

  One afternoon they took the trolley to Tib’s school. Tib was pleased to be showing her Sem to Betsy. When they crossed the Milwaukee River she said eagerly, “We have a regatta every June. I wish you could see it.” When the turreted buildings loomed in sight among ba
re elms, she remarked with a sidelong glance, “It’s prettier, of course, when the trees have leaves.”

  “I like it now,” said Betsy, gazing about. The redbrick walls were clothed warmly with ivy. There were towers and friendly bow windows, and roguish gargoyles peering down.

  Tib pointed out the athletic fields, the tennis courts, and when she had received permission from the resident teacher to show Betsy around, she took her first to the gymnasium.

  “At basketball games,” she said, “the girls who aren’t playing sit in that balcony, and when a basket is made they yell out the spelling of the name of the one who made it.”

  “Like T-I-B?” said Betsy.

  “That’s right,” Tib answered, smiling.

  “They’d never call B-E-T-S-Y,” Betsy said.

  They looked in at the chapel, the library, the dining room. They peeked into the Dorm.

  “I’m getting boarding school fever,” Betsy said. Of course she knew in her heart that no school could ever be more than second best to the Deep Valley High School.

  Tib chattered happily of beach parties on nearby Lake Michigan, of plays for which the girls themselves made scenery and costumes. She showed Betsy the large hall with a stage at one end where plays were produced.

  “We have our dances here, too,” she said.

  “Do the girls ever go out with boys?” Betsy asked when they were walking toward the lake.

  “Oh, yes, but you take a chaperone and you have to be in by ‘second winks.’ And Browner girls are allowed to go to only certain places. I remember when…one of the girls…was ‘campused’ for sneaking out to a restaurant not on the approved list.” Betsy wondered over Tib’s momentary hesitation. Could the girl have been Phil Brandish’s sister?

  “If I were a boarding pupil,” Tib continued matter-of-factly, “I wouldn’t do a thing like that. Browner is a school with high standards. And schools are like people. They have to have standards and live up to them, or they don’t amount to much.”

  The lake was in sight now. Betsy and Tib clasped hands and ran. It was Betsy’s first glimpse of the big inland sea, so different from the gentle, willow-fringed lakes of home. She felt very small standing on the sand, with the gulls swooping overhead and that vast expanse of water before them. The water was gray today, with whitecaps in a neverending race.

  Betsy liked Lake Michigan, but best of all she liked downtown Milwaukee…the shops and the trolleys and especially the crowds which, like the whitecaps, were never ending. She liked the shipping in the bay, and the Milwaukee River nosing its way so determinedly through the city streets. Tib took her to see the statue of that Solomon Juneau who had started the whole thing.

  They went downtown several times, once to a matinee at the Davidson Theatre called Father and the Boys. As they waited for the curtain to go up, eating caramels busily, Tib said she saw almost everything good that came to Milwaukee.

  “If Uncle Rudy doesn’t buy me tickets I buy them out of my allowance. I go alone. I like to, and Papa doesn’t mind. I’ve seen Otis Skinner, and Sothern and Marlowe, and Minnie Maddern Fiske. Betsy, I even saw Sarah Bernhardt!”

  “You did?” cried Betsy, and began to laugh. She told Tib about Julia’s quarrel with Hugh as to who was greater, Sarah Bernhardt or Rose Stahl.

  “Why, I saw Rose Stahl, too!” Tib exclaimed.

  “Didn’t you love The Chorus Lady?”

  “Adored it! Betsy, do you remember when I played Meenie in Rip Van Winkle?”

  “I’ll never forget it. You were perfect! Tib, do you think you might like to be an actress when you grow up?”

  Tib did not answer immediately. She swallowed a caramel, licked her fingers and looked thoughtful. The orchestra was tuning up now. Fiddles were twanging on the G string, flutes were making rippling excursions into the stuffy, scented air.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I like to dance, too. But it all goes together.”

  “I only thought…if you’re going to be an actress, when I’m a famous writer, I’ll write a play for you.”

  “I’d love that!” cried Tib, and then the theatre darkened, and the curtain went up.

  On another afternoon they went shopping for Betsy’s presents, the fairy book for Margaret, the stein for Mr. Ray, the score of The Merry Widow for Julia. They bought Anna a sewing basket, lined with purple silk, and Tacy fancy hat pins.

  Betsy did not have courage enough to buy the rabbit’s foot. But Tib, as usual, had courage for two. With Betsy trying to act as though they were perfect strangers, Tib danced up to the drug counter and made the shocking purchase.

  “I’d better get Mamma something else,” said Betsy, “and pretend that this is just a joke, in case she doesn’t like it.” So they bought her a vanity bag like Aunt Dolly’s.

  Betsy bought dozens of postal cards for the Crowd…views of Lake Michigan, of Juneau Park, of Browner and the famous Schlitz Palm Garten. On some of them she wrote, “I want you to meet my friend, Miss Muller, otherwise known as Tib.” And Tib scribbled in, “Pleased to meet you,” and sometimes, “Prosit!”

  All these expeditions unfailingly led to a coffee shop called Webers. Every afternoon at four, as Betsy soon learned, that part of Milwaukee which was not at home to put the coffee pot on, gathered at places like this one. There was a bake shop in front at which, on your way back to the tables, you selected a cake from tantalizing displays. Almost everything was covered with drifts of whipped cream.

  “Whenever I see whipped cream, all my life, I’ll think of Milwaukee,” Betsy said.

  Choosing a cake required the weightiest concentration. But when they had finally made their selections they proceeded to the tables where one could have either coffee or chocolate from silver pots, with, of course, a bowl of whipped cream handy.

  “What a nice custom this is!” Betsy sighed blissfully. “Coffee in the afternoon!”

  “But the women in Milwaukee are mostly very fat.”

  “This is worth getting fat for!” cried willow-thin Betsy. “Let’s go back and choose another cake!”

  Many of Tib’s relatives strove to make Betsy’s visit pleasant. One of the stout aunts took the girls to the Turnverein to hear Handel’s Messiah, A stout uncle sent them to The Rat Catcher of Hamlin. Grosspapa Muller took the family and Betsy to dinner at the fashionable Deutscher Club…Johann in livery on the box of the carriage. Grosspapa Hornik, not to be outdone, took them to the Schlitz Palm Garten.

  On New Year’s Eve Tib invited all the cousins to a party for Betsy. While dressing Betsy had an inspired idea.

  “Tib, do you know what I think we ought to do?”

  “What?” asked Tib.

  “Stay up all night tonight, and talk.”

  “You mean, all night, until morning?”

  “Yes. I never did it; did you? And New Year’s Eve is a perfect time for it, such a mystic kind of evening. Besides I’m going home day after tomorrow, and goodness knows when we’ll see each other again!”

  A curious expression crossed Tib’s face. Then she replied, “All right. I’ll make coffee to help keep us awake. After Papa and Mamma are asleep of course. We’d better not mention it to them.”

  “Oh, of course not! Natürlich.”

  The evening was passed pleasantly with cousins large and small. Even the twins and Hobbie stayed up for the New Year. They sang and played games, and there were ice cream and two kinds of cake for refreshments.

  When the cuckoo clock started to sing for twelve o’clock, everyone made a fearful racket. They yelled at the tops of their voices, “Happy New Year!” and “Prosit Neujahr!” They shook hands, and laughed, and Hemrich threw up the window in order that the gaiety of the surrounding houses might come in.

  Betsy put out her head. Whistles were blowing, bells were ringing.

  “Ring out the old, ring in the new…”

  But the new Betsy had not yet been rung in. She didn’t even seem to be on the way.

  “She is, though,” Betsy resolved, staring fir
mly at a star. “I’ll start with the new year.”

  “If you want to get married, Betsy,” Heinrich called, “this is the year for you. Nineteen hundred and eight is Leap Year, you know.”

  “There’ll be another in four years.”

  “But you may not have me around then.”

  “I’ll have to make a special trip to Milwaukee.”

  This banter made her feel almost as though she were back in Deep Valley.

  With the New Year, the party broke up. Singing out good wishes, the cousins departed. Fred took a sleepy Hobbie off to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Muller, too, retired. Tib and Betsy undressed, put on bathrobes and sat down to wait. When the house was quiet, Tib whispered, “Now I’ll make the coffee.” And they tiptoed toward the kitchen.

  While the coffee boiled, they loaded a tray with cream and sugar, kuchen, and what Tib called Butterbrot, slices of buttered bread; also some cold beef, two or three kinds of cheese, what was left of the cakes, and dill pickles. The coffee reached a fragrant boil…all too fragrant.

  “Heavens! Mamma will be sure to smell it!” Tib opened a window and Betsy waved her hands frantically, trying to push the smell out into the night.

  Tib took the tray, and Betsy took the coffee pot, and they tiptoed back to their room. The cuckoo clock sang one.

  They closed the door and pushed a rug against it and arranged their dishes on a little table. Tib had even brought a lace-edged cloth and two napkins. Neither one was very fond of coffee but they diluted it liberally with cream and spooned in sugar. They made themselves sandwiches from the Butterbrot, beef and cheese. Betsy realized suddenly how much fun it was.

  “Tib,” she said, putting down her cup. “I’ve had the most glorious time visiting you.”

  “I’ve loved it, too,” Tib answered soberly. “I wanted you to come. I like the girls at the Sem very much, and I like my cousins, but there’s never been anyone like you and Tacy.”

  “We’ve never gotten over missing you.”

  “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come,” said Tib. “I know how much you think of Christmas in your family. And besides, you have so much fun in Deep Valley during vacation.”