“These aren’t oak trees, if you’re looking for nuts,” Betsy murmured. “Go away and let us concentrate.”
She sat up suddenly.
“Do you think the name ought to be serious? We three feel serious about it, of course. But you know Winona. We’ll have to make it sort of devilish to appeal to her.”
“How about Eight Devils?” Tib inquired.
Betsy and Tacy stared in admiring unbelief.
“Eight Devils!” “Why, that’s perfect!” “Tib Muller, I didn’t think you had it in you!”
Surprised but elated at this triumph, Tib preened herself. “I think it’s pretty good, too.”
“Eight Devils!” Betsy repeated. “Now we have to put it into Greek. Who do we know who speaks Greek?”
“Probably Miss Erickson does, but I wouldn’t ask her, the old pill!”
“Miss Bangeter knows everything, but she might not…she might not…” Betsy didn’t finish the sentence. The others understood.
“Miss Sparrow would know.” Miss Sparrow was Deep Valley’s popular librarian.
“Of course. We’ll ask Miss Sparrow. It’s only the word eight we need to bother about. Devil begins with D and I know the Greek letter. It’s shaped like a triangle. It’s Delta.”
“We’re the Eight Deltas,” shouted Tib. She jumped to her feet and started shwushing through the leaves. “I’ll make the invitations, Betsy. I’ll draw horns in all the corners and maybe a devil’s pitchfork.”
“Swell. We’ll make them tomorrow after school.”
“When will we write the constitution and stuff?”
“The day after that.” Betsy rocked with joy. “Let’s have the initiation Saturday night. We can have it at my house.”
“Let’s have a mock initiation before the real one. Put ice down their backs—that sort of thing.”
“Oh, let’s!”
“I feel as though we were kids again, making up a club,” said Tib.
Betsy turned on her indignantly. “This isn’t any kiddish club, Tib Muller! It’s a sorority. You’re going to take a vow never to get mad at us.”
“I never get mad at you anyway.”
“She’s hopeless,” Betsy said to Tacy. “Let’s go ask Miss Sparrow.”
They went back to Old Mag, who whinnied a welcome. Betsy fixed the checkrein, and they climbed into the surrey. They drove down Agency Hill to the library, talking all the way about pins, grips, passwords, whistles and salutes. With windblown hair and pink cheeks they burst in on Miss Sparrow.
“Miss Sparrow, what’s the Greek word for eight?”
“Eight? Let me see! Why, it’s o k t ,” she replied.
“How do you spell it?”
“O-K-T-O.”
“That’s all!”
“Thank you!”
They rushed back outside. “We’re the Okto Deltas!” “The Okto Deltas!”
“It sounds wonderful!” Betsy exclaimed, blissfully uncritical of the fact that it was a hybrid name, that Okto was a Greek word while Delta was only the Greek initial of an English word. It sounded just as good as Epsilon Iota.
Next day, all three were wool-gathering in classes. They deluged one another with notes and dodged their mystified friends. After school they went downtown and purchased cardboard, orange and black crayons, orange and black crepe paper. Orange and black, they had decided, were to be the Okto Delta colors.
They went to Tib’s house, and locked in her room, they made the invitations. Tib cut the cardboard into diamond shaped pieces, which she folded into double triangles. The outer flap was colored orange and outlined in black to make a Delta. Superimposed was the black letter O with a devil curled inside. On the inner flap, the recipient was invited to come to Betsy’s house on Saturday night to join the mystic order of Okto Delta.
Tib mailed the invitations next morning on her way to school, and when the three girls gathered that afternoon at Tacy’s house, Katie’s invitation, postmarked and looking very official, lay on the hall table.
They locked themselves in Tacy’s room and began the constitution, Tib writing, Betsy dictating, Tacy adding witty bits. Before they had finished, the telephone began to ring. The other girls had come from school and found their invitations.
Excitement seethed over the wire and through the Crowd next day. When the boys found every girl engaged for Saturday night, they were curious and annoyed.
On Saturday it started to rain, a steady downpour.
“It’s perfect, just perfect for an initiation,” Betsy rejoiced.
Tacy and Tib came for supper, and after supper, in spite of the rain, Mr. and Mrs. Ray obligingly went to the Majestic, taking Margaret with them.
The first thing the girls did was lock all the doors and pull the shades. They tacked blankets over the parlor windows. There were orange and black candles in readiness but they didn’t light them. Instead, when they had finished their work, they extinguished all lights everywhere.
The initiates found a dead black house veiled with sheets of rain. Early arrivals were forced to stand on the porch until all five had come. When the door was opened, Irma entered first.
“Shake the hand of friendship,” said a deep sepulchral voice. Irma clasped a shadowy hand. Then her terrified scream rang out. Carney followed and she screamed. So did Alice. Winona and Katie were made of sterner stuff. Katie grasped the hand without a word, and Winona cried scornfully, “Calm yourselves, children! It’s just a glove filled with cracked ice.”
In the jet black parlor they were told to kneel in a circle. Again each girl screamed in turn as a small piece of ice slithered down her back. They were told by the sepulchral voice, sounding now more like Tacy’s, and shaky with laughter, that they must eat worms.
“Sure. I like worms,” said Winona. “Can I have a second helping? It’s spaghetti, kids.”
“It isn’t! It’s worms! It’s horrible!”
The pandemonium became so great that it seemed best to light the candles. The founders were revealed dressed in sheets trimmed with black and orange crepe paper.
“Now sit down in a row. Make quick!” commanded Tib.
Betsy unfolded a sheet of foolscap paper and began to read.
“Respectfully submitted, the Constitution of the Okto Delta sorority….” A sorority, she paused to explain, was a sisterhood. They were banding themselves together into a sisterhood.
“Hi, Sister Biscay,” Winona hailed Irma.
“Howdy, Sister Root,” cried Katie.
Tib rushed to silence them and Betsy continued:
“‘Okto,’ be it understood, is a Greek word meaning eight. ‘Delta’ is the Greek equivalent of the English letter D, which in this case stands for Devils, leaving the translated name of the sorority—”
“Eight Devils!” Winona interrupted. “Whoopee!”
Betsy frowned severely.
“The purpose of the sorority,” she went on, “is to have a good time. The only theory it has to expound is, ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you.’ Requirements are being jolly, sticking by the bunch, and treating everybody square.”
She proceeded to the rules and by-laws.
The officers, elected by ballot once a year, would be president, secretary-treasurer and sergeant-at-arms. The initiation fee would be two cents, the monthly dues ten cents. Money thus accumulated was to be used at the discretion of a social committee. This committee, composed of two girls, would make arrangements for at least one festivity every two weeks.
“For example,” Betsy interjected, “dances, picnics, cross-country tramps, mock weddings and stag parties.”
Each member was to entertain the sorority every eighth Saturday evening in alphabetical order. Refreshments would be served.
“And they’d better be good!” someone shouted.
“We must now take the sacred vow of friendship,” Betsy said, and Tib went around with an ink pot and a pen and everyone was asked to sign.
Winona took the pen doubtfully. “Do you mean th
at I have to stay friends with all of you forever?”
“That’s right,” Betsy replied.
“What if Irma takes Squirrelly away from me?”
“She can’t. She’s your sister in Okto Delta. She has to leave all our beaux alone.”
“Heck!” said Winona, signing. “That alone is worth the dues.”
Irma threw a sofa cushion.
“Sister Biscay! Sister Root!” cried Tib, dashing about.
Order was restored and elections were held.
Carney was elected president.
“I don’t mind mentioning to the Sistren,” Betsy said, “that I expect to be secretary-treasurer. I want the fun of writing up the minutes. I’ve even bought a notebook. See?”
“And I don’t mind mentioning,” said Tib, “that I expect to be sergeant-at-arms. You notice how well I’ve been keeping order. I’m little, but oh my!”
Obligingly, the Sistren made Betsy secretary-treasurer and Tib sergeant-at-arms. Betsy whipped out a pencil and began to write the minutes, reading them aloud when she thought they were exceptionally brilliant.
“The first thing to do,” said Carney, taking charge, “is to decide on a whistle. We simply have to have a whistle. Otherwise how would we know whether it was an Okto Delta trying to call us away from our supper or just some dumb boy?”
“Yes, how?” asked Winona. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
“I will now listen,” said Carney, “to any whistles the Sistren care to propose.”
The response was a blast of whistles, loud, soft and breathy, in all combinations of notes.
“Wait!” cried Betsy. “Don’t decide yet! I’ve got a wonderful one, but I can’t seem to make it come.”
She struggled but in vain. The Sistren waited loyally. They clapped her on the back. The sergeant-at-arms brought a glass of water. Still no whistle, and Alice grew tired of waiting.
“How’s this?” she asked. Her whistle came clear and firm: “Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee!”
“Oh, that’s cute!”
“That’s grand.”
“Let’s take that one.”
“Sister Morrison,” scribbled Betsy, “proposed a whistle which was whistled and approved as whistled. Sister Root offered a handshake which was shook and approved as shook. Sister K. Kelly offered a salute which was saluted and approved as saluted.
“The Sistren Biscay, T. Kelly and Ray were appointed by the president to look up the matter of pins. A more suitable committee couldn’t have been appointed. Sister Ray is especially competent. Long live our wise president!”
The pins, it was decided, when Betsy stopped reading aloud, would be engraved with the Okto Delta symbol, the triangle with a circle inside, such as Tib had drawn on the invitations.
“Gee, I’m important!” Tib said. “I thought up the name and I drew the first Okto Delta sign. What would you all have done if I’d stayed in Milwaukee?”
“I think we ought to entertain the boys,” Winona broke in. “After all, there are other girls in school. If we’re busy every Saturday night our boys will find someone to take out.”
“Freshmen, probably.”
“Yes. They certainly fall for the freshmen.”
“Maybe they’ll get up a fraternity,” Betsy suggested. “Eight boys, to match our sorority.”
There was a chorus of approving cheers.
Nobody wanted to play cards that night. Making plans was much more entertaining. They had refreshments—sandwiches, cocoa and whipped-cream cake—and Winona played the piano.
“Morning Cy,
Howdy Cy,
Gosh darn, Cyrus, hut you’re
Looking spry….”
They barn-danced. They cake-walked. They practised high kicking. Mr. and Mrs. Ray and Margaret came in before it was over, but secret affairs had all been disposed of so their presence didn’t matter. They finished the whipped-cream cake, while the fun went on.
Tib stayed all night with Betsy and they talked the evening over jubilantly as they undressed and put on what Betsy, copying Julia, called their “dream robes.”
“I never had so much fun in my life,” Tib declared. “I’m so glad you thought of making up a sorority.”
“It did go over with a bang,” Betsy replied.
And it did. It was as great a success as she had hoped it would be.
“Now,” she thought with satisfaction, waiting for sleep to come, “I’m going to begin to do things.”
10
The Old Pill
SHE DID BEGIN to do things. But they weren’t, or at least the first one wasn’t, the sort of things that she had in mind. The first effect of Okto Delta in Betsy’s life was catastrophic.
The excitement of the girls did not exhaust itself over the weekend, which was filled with feverish telephoning and rushing from house to house to discuss the new organization. The boys beseiged them with questions.
“What does Okto Delta stand for?”
“Don’t you wish you knew!”
“Show me the grip. Come on, I won’t tell.”
“Tony Markham! Don’t you know that sororities are secret?”
“Aw, it’s only a club!”
“It’s nothing whatever like a club,” responded the indignant Okto Deltas.
The high school, when it convened on Monday, was as obtuse as Tony. It was accustomed to clubs which sprang up all the time like eager mushrooms, and it didn’t know the difference that Greek letters made. It didn’t realize at first how exclusive and important sororities were.
The girls enjoyed mystifying everyone.
“Sister Ray!”
“Sister Kelly!”
“Hi there, Sister in Okto Delta!”
“What is this Okto Delta?” fellow students inquired in complete good humor.
“Just wait! You’ll find out!”
Betsy, in a line of marchers heading for the Latin class, passed Winona heading for the physics lab. These lines were fairly rigid. Students were not supposed to break away nor pause for conversation. But passing Betsy, the irrepressible Winona gave the Okto Delta whistle, “Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee.” She leaned out to take Betsy’s hand in the Okto Delta grip. She gave the Okto Delta salute, four fingers lifted on either side of her head, and then on a sudden inspiration, crooked the fingers to make horns. Betsy burst out laughing and Miss Erickson, standing at the door of the classroom, regarded her disapprovingly.
Betsy and Tacy, who usually sat side by side, happened to be separated by a desk or two in Latin class. Bursting to tell Tacy about Winona’s antics, Betsy raised her hand. Miss Erickson responded coldly, “Yes?”
“May I please speak to Tacy?”
“Certainly not,” replied Miss Erickson. “Anything you have to say to Tacy can wait until the end of the period.”
Betsy was annoyed. She was not accustomed to being snubbed in the Deep Valley High School. While Miss Erickson was explaining a difficult passage she wrote a note to Tacy.
“Erickson won’t let me speak to you, the old pill. But after class I have a joke to tell you. Thy faithful Sister in Okto Delta, Betsy.”
Folding this and marking it with Tacy’s name, she passed it along the row to Tacy. Miss Erickson slapped her book shut.
“Betsy Ray! You may bring that note to me.”
Betsy blushed. She remembered “the old pill” and blushed more deeply still. Of course, Miss Erickson might throw the note in the waste basket without reading it. That, thought Betsy virtuously, would be the honorable thing to do. But she might conceivably read it.
“If she does,” thought Betsy defiantly, “it’s just too bad.”
She took the note, walked to the front of the room and held it out.
To her surprise Miss Erickson didn’t take it. Instead she said, “We would all like to know what business you and Tacy have that is important enough to interrupt Cataline’s orations. You may read the note to the class.”
“Not…aloud!” Betsy cried.
> “That is what I said,” Miss Erickson answered.
“I…I’d rather not.”
“You should have thought of that before you wrote it.”
Betsy turned a still deeper crimson. After a brief, desperate hesitation, she threw off her accustomed droop, stood erect and read: “Erickson won’t let me speak to you, the old pill. But after class I have a joke to tell you. Thy faithful Sister in Okto Delta, Betsy.”
There was an aghast silence in the Cicero classroom. Joe Willard, who never reacted like other people, looked amused, but everyone else looked frightened. Tacy was so pale that her freckles stood out.
Betsy glanced furtively toward Miss Erickson. She, too, was blushing. Angry color ran from the edge of her bright yellow hair down to her stiff white collar.
“Betsy,” said Miss Erickson, “take that note to Miss Bangeter. Tell her the circumstances under which you read it to the class.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Betsy replied. She folded the note and went out.
Years seemed to fall away as she stood in the empty hall. She felt as though she were a little girl again in grade school, sent by the teacher to another room with a note. She had been proud then, but she had always felt a little frightened, too.
The hall was surrounded by classrooms from which came the murmur of monotonous voices. There was a water fountain, and she took a drink. She went to the cloakroom mirror and fluffed her hair aimlessly without really looking at her burning face.
Miss Bangeter’s office was behind the assembly room. Miss Clarke, in charge of the study period there, smiled brightly as Betsy walked through. Betsy forced a sickly smile in return.
Being sent to Miss Bangeter was a strangely powerful chastisement. She was not unduly severe; she was known to be just and even generous. But she was such an awesome personage, she lived on such Olympian heights that there was a profound humiliation merely in bringing wrongdoing into her presence.
Knocking at the door Betsy reflected that it was the first time she had been sent to the principal’s office for a reprimand. She had seen it happen dozens of times to boys and girls she knew. It was always happening to Winona. But Betsy Ray was supposed to be a different kind of person. She was the kind who is elected to class office, who has conferences with the teachers on school affairs, not her own misdemeanors. This was plain in the expression which crossed Miss Bangeter’s face when she saw who had entered.
Betsy Was a Junior / Betsy and Joe Page 8
