Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “What?”

  “Papa doesn’t like it,” Julia said.

  Betsy was inclined to take this lightly, but Julia looked grave and uplifted as she looked when she sang.

  “It just breaks my heart to upset Papa,” she said. “But I can’t help it that I have this wonderful feeling. What do you think I ought to do?”

  Betsy warmed as always when Julia turned to her for counsel.

  “Have you talked to Mamma about it?”

  “Yes. She tells Papa not to take it too seriously. It may be,” added Julia darkly, “that it’s more serious than she thinks.”

  “Julia, has he…he hasn’t…proposed?”

  “Not yet. I don’t think he will until I graduate.”

  “Then don’t worry! Because if you do, you may not even graduate.” Both of them began to laugh, and remembered that school started next day with examinations imminent.

  Examinations, as usual, quite changed the character of life. After school and in the evening, alone and in crowds, everyone was studying, Julia was memorizing a speech from Hamlet for Miss Bangeter’s Shakespeare class. It was Polonius’ speech to Laertes, his son.

  Betsy heard it so often that she inadvertently learned it and would chant along with Julia through the various admonitions to the end.

  “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.”

  Betsy needed such soothing exercise. She was really worried.

  “Usually I can rely on a good grade in English. But with Gaston…I don’t know what to expect. History and Caesar aren’t so bad. I think I can manage if I study diligentia.”

  “Cum diligentia,” Julia corrected.

  “Cum diligentia. But oh this geometry!”

  Julia explained the proposition in hand. “Do you understand it now?”

  “If I don’t I can memorize it.”

  “But Bettina, it would be so much better to understand it. Geometry is so interesting. It’s so much fun.”

  “About as much fun as the dentist,” Betsy growled.

  She was in her own room, wearing an ancient bathrobe and decrepit slippers. Examination week was definitely not the time to be Dramatic or Mysterious.

  When it was over, with Julia and Betsy passing in alt subjects, the Winding Hall of Fate took a momentous twist.

  Betsy had an attack of la grippe. And her convalescence was not happy. Usually Betsy, who loved to read and loved even better to write, rather enjoyed being kept in bed. But this time, although she had a new dressing sacque and a pile of notebooks and sharp pencils, she did not have a good time at all. She had been running away from some thoughts from which she could now run no further.

  The humiliating truth was that she had not succeeded in changing herself.

  She had had fun telling Tacy that she was going to change, and even more fun plotting out with the admiring Tib a thrilling glamorous transformation. But facing the facts in her lonely bed Betsy realized that it was much easier for her to plot out something than it was for her to do it. Just as, when they were younger, she and Tacy had loved to dream up wild deeds but it had usually been Tib who carried them out.

  This particular plan was unusually difficult to translate into action. It really amounted to play-acting, and Betsy had never been any good at that. Julia could play-act any time, any place, before any audience. She could be haughty or coquettish or melancholy as the occasion required. But Betsy, in the family circle at least, was always the same. She was always plain Betsy.

  Right now, the day before the doctor had said she might get up, she was heartily sick and tired of being Betsy.

  “I’m so disgustingly young!” she thought, digging into a pillow. “Not in my age but in the way I am.”

  Harry was practically on the point of proposing to Julia. Carney had gone with Larry for four years and now had Al Larson, the football hero, paying devoted attention. Irma enthralled everyone just by widening her big eyes. Winona was not an absolute siren, but plenty of boys followed gaily along her madcap path. Tacy and Alice, of course, weren’t interested in boys.

  “But I am,” thought Betsy, tears squeezing beneath her lashes. She was ashamed and dashed them away. “It isn’t that I have a crush on anyone. I haven’t. But I’d like to be dazzling, popular, a belle. I always thought I would be.”

  She sat up in bed violently and blew her nose.

  “And I will be,” she said, aloud this time. She went on silently. “There’s no reason why I can’t be. I’m not so pretty as I wish I were, but I’m plenty pretty enough. The trouble is that Tony and Cab and Dennie all know me too well. They see me doing homework and washing dishes and things. I can’t put on in front of anyone I know. But I can with people I don’t know, sometimes. I could with Phil Brandish.”

  She remembered her thoughts after talking with Tib the first afternoon in Milwaukee. Tib had said that Betsy could probably get Phil Brandish if she tried. All at once everything seemed to fit into place like the pieces of a puzzle. Betsy felt alert and confident.

  “I’m going to get Phil Brandish crazy about me,” she said, and began to put her bed in order, flapping the comforter so energetically that notebooks and pencils flew in all directions. Julia just back from a lesson at Mrs. Poppy’s, looked around the door.

  “What do you think, Bettina? The Metropolitan Opera is coming to St. Paul this spring. Caruso’s coming, and Farrar.”

  “Um…is that so?” said Betsy. “Julia, what do you do when you want to get some boy interested in you?”

  “I tell him I had a dream about him,” said Julia, and laughed, and went on to her own room.

  So! That was the way! Betsy plumped her pillow and sat up, very bright eyed. She couldn’t very well tell Phil Brandish that she had had a dream about him, for she never saw him. You can’t buttonhole a virtual stranger in the middle of the street and tell him that you had a dream about him.

  “But you can spread the news,” thought Betsy, bouncing with determination. She was, she knew, in an excellent position to spread news. The Ray house was headquarters for the Crowd. At any moment now boys and girls would begin trooping in. In fact, the advance guard had already arrived.

  “Yoo hoo! Betsy!” Tacy, Winona, and Carney clattered up to Betsy’s room.

  “What are you looking so excited about?” Tacy asked at once.

  “Girls!” cried Betsy. “I had the craziest dream about Phil Brandish.”

  “You what?” “Phil Brandish?” “For heaven’s sake!”

  “Yes, I had a dream about Phil Brandish. But don’t ask me to tell you what it is, because I won’t.” And Betsy began to laugh merrily.

  Winona started to tease her into telling, but a voice from down stairs interrupted. “Hello! It’s Cab and Irma. May we come up?”

  “Irma can, but not Cab until I get beautified,” cried Betsy, taking pins out of her hair. Irma ran upstairs, and Cab, joined shortly by Dennie, sat down at the piano to play “Chopsticks.”

  “Irma,” Winona said, “Betsy has had a dream about Phil Brandish.”

  “What was it?”

  “She won’t tell!”

  “I certainly won’t! Will you call Julia, and ask her to come like a lamb and fix my hair?”

  “Do you know what it is?” Winona demanded of Julia.

  “Know what what is?”

  “Betsy’s dream about Phil Brandish.”

  “Betsy’s…dream?” Julia looked at Betsy. “Did you have a dream about Phil Brandish, Bettina?” Julia asked easily taking up the comb.

  Cab and Dennie, joined now by Tony, shouted up the stairs. “If we can’t come up, some of you women come down.”

  “Go keep the poor things company,” Betsy said. And Carney and Irma rose.

  Tacy stayed curled on the foot of the bed, and Winona was too curious to leave. She stared with speculative eyes while Julia deftly twisted and pinned and gave Betsy a hand mir
ror in which to see the effect.

  The boys downstairs were calling for Julia to come play the piano.

  “Play ‘Dreaming’ for me, will you, Julia?” Betsy asked.

  “‘Dreaming’? That old thing?”

  “It’s so appropriate,” said Betsy, and she and Tacy went off into gales of laughter.

  “See here,” said Winona. “You have to tell me what you’re laughing about.”

  “Nothing,” said Tacy.

  “Oh, Tacy and I made up words for that song…ages ago,” Betsy said.

  “What are they?”

  “Shall we tell her, Tacy?”

  Julia had started to play, and Betsy and Tacy began to sing, in parts, with sobs of mock feeling.

  “Dreaming, dreaming,

  Of your red auto I’m dreaming,

  Dreaming of days when I got a ride,

  Dreaming of hours spent by your side.”

  “Betsy!” interrupted Winona. “Do you have a crush on Phil Brandish?”

  “I never said I didn’t.”

  “But have you?”

  “I never said I did.”

  Winona pounced on her, and the scuffle grew so pronounced that Mrs. Ray came out from her bedroom where she had been sewing.

  “Is this the way to behave with la grippe? I’m certainly thankful that you get up tomorrow.”

  “So am I,” said Betsy. “And I can go back to school on Monday. Can’t I, Mamma?”

  “I expect so.”

  “I hope so because the class officers are meeting. We’re making plans for the sophomore party.”

  Tony, Cab and Dennie roared up the stairs.

  “Is Betsy beautiful yet?” “What’s this about your dream?” “Why don’t you ever dream about me?”

  Betsy shouted appropriate replies, and Winona ran down stairs.

  Betsy was up and dressed next day, looking pale and interesting, she hoped. The rest of the week passed quickly, more than a little enlivened by talk of her dream.

  “Do you know,” asked Winona, again dropping in after school, “it wouldn’t surprise me if Tony had told Phil Brandish that you had a dream about him.”

  “What makes you think so?” Betsy simulated horror.

  “I saw them talking in school.”

  “He wouldn’t be so mean!”

  “Maybe,” suggested Winona looking wicked, “he did it on a dare.”

  “If he did, I know who dared him. Winona Root, you…you…” Betsy made a dash.

  “Be careful,” warned Mrs. Ray, “if you want to go to school on Monday!”

  “I have to go to school. I wouldn’t miss that officers’ meeting for a farm.”

  “Why? What’s so important about it?” Winona asked.

  “I told you. We’re planning the sophomore party. And I have some ideas,” Betsy said. “At least,” she added, “I have one wonderful idea.”

  She went to school on Monday wearing her prettiest waist…its lofty collar was encircled by white ruching…green bows in her hair and a green belt around her slender waist. Just before leaving she sprayed herself with Jockey Club and hurried out before her mother could protest.

  It was good to be back. She was even glad to see the teachers, she announced as supreme proof of her joy. Joe Willard smiled at her. Notes flew briskly up and down the aisles. A Welcome Back present from Tony, in the shape of a piece of licorice, passed hand over hand to her seat and was much appreciated, in spite of the fact that it left a black rim around her mouth.

  A short time later…she had removed the rim…she passed Phil Brandish in the hall. He looked at her keenly. For some reason Betsy did not think at that moment about her much discussed dream. Meeting his yellow-brown eyes brought back the terrible moment when she had discovered him listening to her and Tacy in front of the toyshop. She blushed down to her snowy ruching and Phil Brandish turned away.

  The sophomore class officers met after school in the Social Room. The president was named Stan Moore. Cab was vice-president, and a nice freckle-faced girl named Hazel Smith was treasurer. Stan at once introduced the subject of the party.

  “This is a pretty important affair,” he said. “We need to raise money. Next year we’ll be juniors and we’ll have to entertain the seniors and do a lot of expensive things. And our treasury is as empty as a drum.” He looked around the group. “Any ideas?”

  Betsy was almost bursting with her important idea but she thought it better strategy not to speak first. Hazel Smith proposed a bazaar with a candy booth. The response was unenthusiastic. After a suitable interval Betsy looked up brightly.

  “I have a brainstorm.”

  “Good! What is it?”

  “Let’s hire Schiller Hall and give a dance.”

  “That wouldn’t make money,” Stan objected. “It would probably lose it for us.”

  “Not if we open it to all the classes,” Betsy answered. “The juniors and seniors give dances at Schiller Hall all the time.”

  “But, Betsy,” put in Hazel, “we sophomores haven’t started dancing much. I’d adore a dance, and I think most of the girls would, but I don’t believe…to tell the truth…that we’d be invited. A few sophomore girls, like Irma would probably get to go and maybe you would, Betsy,” she added politely. “But I don’t think most of the sophomore boys would ask girls. Would you now?” she appealed to Cab and Stan.

  Before they had a chance to answer Betsy spoke. “Oh, but you haven’t heard all my brainstorm. This is Leap Year, and I want to give a Leap Year dance. Let the girls do the asking.”

  “Hooray!” cried Cab. “And the paying?”

  “Certainly the paying. Of course, if you are gentlemen you’ll return the party soon.”

  “That would make two parties! Fine for the treasury,” grinned Stan.

  It was unanimously decided to announce a Leap Year dance for the coming Friday, the last one in February.

  Betsy went straight home and up to her room. Since the trip to Milwaukee she had kept a pad of Jockey Club sachet in her stationery which was, of course, pale green. On one of these heavily scented sheets, she wrote a note…but not until she had written several trial versions on tablet paper.

  The note, which she immediately sealed, stamped and mailed, was signed…Betsye Ray.

  17

  The Leap Year Dance

  NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL news of the Leap Year dance blew like a mischievous wind through the cloak rooms, the Social Room, even the assembly room. Not for four years, not for a high school generation, had girls had a chance to invite boys to a party.

  “That was a good idea, Betsy,” said Stan, stopping her in the hall. “I didn’t realize that girls were so crazy about dances. There’s such a rush for tickets that it keeps Hazel busy taking in the money.”

  Betsy smiled, one of the new smiles she was practising. “I’m awfully glad it’s working out,” she said. “I hear that Hazel’s taking you?”

  “That’s right. Who are you going to take?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Betsy replied. And that was what she said to everyone. It wasn’t, she argued, an untruth, although it certainly gave a false impression.

  “Who are you taking, Betsy?” Irma inquired. “I’d like to ask Cab, but not if…”

  “Ask him. He’ll be delirious with joy.”

  Carney approached her. “I’m taking Al. Who are you taking, Betsy?”

  “I don’t know. Wish I did.”

  “While you’re thinking,” Carney warned, “everyone will be snatched up.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  Winona complained good-humoredly that Joe Willard had turned her down.

  “You ought to take Pin anyway,” said Betsy.

  “I will. You’re taking Tony, I suppose?”

  “I believe Tacy’s taking him,” Betsy answered evasively, and hurried away.

  Tacy knew the secret of the pale green, scented note. She was much more interested in that than in whom she would take. “I wish I didn’t have to go, but Alice
and I are on the program committee. Alice is taking Dennie.”

  “Why don’t you ask Tony?” Betsy suggested, remembering the talk with Winona.

  “I’d like to. I know him so well. But you might want to take him yourself, in case you…he…”

  “No,” said Betsy, firmly. “If I get turned down I’ll have another attack of la grippe.”

  Phil Brandish did not seek her out that day. But then she didn’t give him a chance. She hurried through the halls like a fugitive, not meeting his eyes, and, of course, during the morning she was not certain that he had received the note.

  “He must have received it by now,” she thought at the afternoon session. But he didn’t speak.

  The next day there began to be real curiosity about her plans. Winona cornered her.

  “Betsy,” she said sternly. “Are you asking Joe Willard?”

  “I wouldn’t dare to ask him after he turned you down.”

  “Well then, what do you have up your sleeve?” Winona demanded. But even after all the talk about Betsy’s dream, not Winona nor anyone else suggested that Betsy might have asked Phil Brandish.

  “Any mail?” Betsy asked, bursting in after school.

  “No, dear.” Her mother looked up in surprise. “Were you expecting something? Betsy, I’ve just been saying to Julia, you ought to make up your mind about that party. Decide on some boy, and invite him.”

  “Um…er…that’s so,” murmured Betsy, and asked Julia, hastily, “You’re taking Harry, I suppose?”

  “Unnecessary question!” Julia replied. She looked straight at Betsy and her eyes held a knowing twinkle.

  But Betsy was beginning to think that this was not a laughing matter. Today was Thursday. The dance came tomorrow night.

  “I may have to have la grippe awfully quick,” she thought. At supper that night she refused dessert, paving the way for disaster.

  Shortly after supper the telephone rang.

  “You might as well answer it, Betsy,” Mrs. Ray said, “It’s sure to be for you.” The members of the Crowd were wireless telephone conversationalists. Betsy answered with a cautious hello, but her heart dropped and rose several times like a runaway elevator when she heard a deep and unfamiliar voice on the other end of the wire.