Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “I’ve read the book,” said Betsy slowly.

  “‘Foremost American drama and the nation’s pride,’” Winona read aloud. “‘Dear to Americans as the Declaration of Independence. Struck the death knell of slavery.’”

  “Pooh!” said Tacy.

  “‘Presenting America’s most talented and beautiful child actress, Miss Evelyn Montmorency, in the role of Little Eva,’” chanted Winona. “‘Don’t miss her ascension to the heavenly gates, nor the grand brilliant spectacular transformation scene.’”

  “She dies and goes to Heaven,” Betsy said.

  “‘See the ferocious pack of man-eating Siberian bloodhounds. See them chase Eliza in the most thrilling scene ever depicted!’”

  “They chase her over the ice,” Betsy explained. “She jumps from block to block.”

  “‘Hear the plantation singers! See the comical Topsy do her famous breakdown dance! See the heartbreaking, tear-wringing death of Uncle Tom …’”

  “I’ve heard that on the graphophone!” Tacy interrupted excitedly. “You’ve heard it, Betsy! The flogging scene …”

  Winona Root looked from one to the other, smiling exultantly. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out four pieces of pasteboard, and held them above her head.

  “‘Comps!’” she said. “Four of them! I asked my father for them and I got them, just a minute ago. I can take three kids but I haven’t quite decided which ones I will take.”

  With an impish grin, Winona sprang to her bicycle.

  A clanking and rattling was heard up the street.

  “Here it comes!” “Here it comes!” “Here’s the horseless carriage back again!”

  The crowd shouted, and Betsy and Tacy shouted louder than anyone. But Winona did not wait to see Tib’s triumph. Flourishing her tickets in an upflung arm, guiding herself with one jaunty hand, she pedaled off toward home.

  The horseless carriage drew to a stop exactly in front of the Opera House.

  “You see,” Betsy said. “Mr. Poppy knows how to stop it.”

  Tib stepped out, smiling.

  “Thank you, Mr. Poppy. Thank you, Mrs. Poppy,” she said politely. She flung a glance toward Herbert Humphreys, who was staring in admiration, and danced away to join Betsy and Tacy.

  Tib was modest about her sensational ride; Tib was always modest. But as they walked up Front Street, up Broad Street, up Hill Street, going home with Rena’s book, she told them exactly how it felt to ride in a horseless carriage.

  “It’s grand,” she said. “No old horse in front to block your view. You simply sail along. And you can go so fast. Twelve miles in an hour, Mr. Poppy said. Of course, we only went ten today, because we were in town and the horses were so scared.”

  “Were you scared?” Tacy asked.

  “Not a bit.”

  Then Betsy and Tacy told her about the coming of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. They told her about Little Eva and Topsy, the transformation scene and the flogging scene and Eliza crossing the ice. They told her about Winona’s tickets to the Saturday matinee.

  “Gee whiz!” said Betsy. “We’ve just got to be the ones she takes.”

  “I’d certainly like to see those man-eating bloodhounds,” said Tib.

  “I’d have to keep my eyes closed while they flogged Uncle Tom though,” said Tacy, the tender-hearted.

  “I want to see Little Eva go up to Heaven. She goes right up while you’re watching her, and sits on a pink cloud. It’s spiffy,” Betsy said. “How can we make her ask us?”

  “We’ve got to manage it somehow.”

  “We’ve just got to!”

  But before they thought of a way to inveigle an invitation out of Winona Root, they met Jerry. He was walking down Hill Street whistling the song about Brown October Ale.

  “There’s a horseless carriage in town!” Betsy, Tacy, and Tib shouted together.

  “I rode in it!”

  “Tib rode in it!”

  “No!” Jerry cried. “Whose is it? Where is it? Gosh, I’m crazy to see one.” He set off at a run downtown.

  And Betsy, Tacy, and Tib savored again the triumph of Tib’s ride. They progressed up Hill Street slowly, pausing at every house to shout the news. They collected a crowd of envious children, of agitated women.

  “It’s grand,” Tib repeated over and over again. “You sail right along behind nothing.”

  3

  Winona’s Tickets

  EXT MORNING on the way to school they held an earnest consultation on the matter of getting Winona Root to invite them to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  The evening had gone with much jubilant talk of Tib’s ride in the horseless carriage. At the Ray supper table, at the Kelly supper table, at the Muller supper table, in Rena’s and Matilda’s kitchens and, later, on the Rays’ hitching block surrounded by spellbound children in the smoky September dusk, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib had told and retold the afternoon’s adventure. Even modest Tib had swaggered a little as she tripped down Hill Street on her homeward way.

  In the morning, however, she was the one to suggest that hereafter they should belittle her achievement.

  “We mustn’t brag in front of Winona. She’d give those tickets away right in front of our face and eyes.”

  “That’s right, Tib. You’re smart to think of that.”

  “Well, we’ve bragged plenty anyway,” Betsy said contentedly. “Even Julia was just knocked over by your ride.”

  “So was Katie,” Tacy said. “And my big brothers! They made me tell them every single thing you said, Tib.”

  With a long satisfied sigh, Tib dismissed her honors.

  “Let’s plan now how to go after those tickets. I’ve got an idea.”

  Tib’s idea was a practical one, of course. Tib was always practical. She proposed to bribe Winona Root with a combined gift of all their treasures. Betsy’s agate marble, Tacy’s copy of a Gibson Girl, her own Schlitz beer calendar, sent by her uncle in Milwaukee.

  “She’d be sure to take us in return for all that,” Tib said.

  Betsy, however, favored acting as though they didn’t want to go.

  “She’s so contrary. She’s most apt to invite us if we act as though we didn’t care a thing about it.”

  Tacy disagreed.

  “I think we ought to be extra nice to her. Ask her to play at recess. Ask her to come home to play after school. Mamma bakes today, and she’d give us some bread right out of the oven, with honey on it. You could let her ride your bicycle, Tib. And Betsy could let her use the telephone.”

  Mr. Ray had just installed a telephone; it was a novelty to Hill Street.

  “She’s got a telephone herself,” said Betsy. “They had the first one in town.”

  “Well, she can telephone her mother then.”

  But Betsy shook her head.

  “It would be just like her to let us do all that, and then give the tickets to somebody else.”

  Tacy and Tib knew that this was true. All of them could visualize Winona’s mocking smile.

  They had reached Mrs. Chubbock’s candy store beside the school grounds when Tacy stopped suddenly and clutched an arm of either friend.

  “I’ve got it! We’ll hypnotize her!”

  “Hypnotize her!”

  “You remember the hypnotist who came to the Opera House last year? Mary and Celia saw him. He could make anyone do anything he wanted to, just by thinking about it. Let’s us think toward Winona, ‘Take us to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Take us to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”

  “Tacy Kelly, that’s wonderful!” cried Betsy.

  But Tib was doubtful.

  “Don’t you remember,” she asked, “that just after the hypnotist came, we tried to hypnotize our fathers? We tried to make them give us a dollar. We thought about it at every meal. I stared at Papa just like you told me to and thought, ‘Give me a dollar. Give me a dollar.’ You all did the same thing, but not one of us got a dollar.”

  It was just like Tib to dig up this unsuccessful venture.

 
; “Tib,” said Betsy. “You forget. There was just one of us thinking toward each father. Besides, a dollar is a lot of money. If we’d made it a nickel or a penny, we’d probably have got it. All three of us will be thinking toward Winona Root, and she can’t help but feel it. It will be powerful. It will be terrific.”

  “We can try it,” Tib said glumly.

  “We’ll all think the same thing,” said Tacy. “‘Take us to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Take us. Take us. Take us.’”

  “I like that,” said Betsy. “It sounds like a poem. Let’s practice it now.”

  They put their arms around one another’s shoulders and bent their heads together.

  “Take us to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Take us. Take us. Take us.”

  It did sound like a poem. It sounded weird and mysterious.

  “We’ll stare at her while we think it,” said Betsy. “That’s what the hypnotist did,” Tacy explained. The school bell rang noisily, and Betsy, Tacy, and Tib ran across the sandy boys’ yard and up the long flight of steps leading to the school door. They went up to the second floor and into their room.

  Miss Paxton was their teacher. She had a gray pompadour and wore shirt-waist suits in which her stock was always very high and her belt very trim. The room was sunny and large. There was a bouquet of purple asters, goldenrod, and sumac leaves on Miss Paxton’s tidy desk.

  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib took their seats, which were not close together. Every year they sought for adjoining seats and every year the teacher foiled their plan and placed them as far apart as possible. Betsy and Tacy sat toward the back of the room, one at the far right and one at the far left. Tib sat near the front. Winona Root sat halfway back in the very center of the room.

  With the second bell she dashed in, wearing a red dress. Her black eyes went at once to Tib. Tib was staring at her. Winona seated herself with a breezy flipping of skirts. Tib turned around and continued to stare with eyes like round moons.

  Winona looked surprised. She had expected bragging, boasting, taunts, perhaps. But not this … whatever it was. Slightly uncomfortable, she turned to the left, only to find Tacy’s Irish eyes fixed on her dreamily. She turned to the right and encountered Betsy’s piercing hazel gaze.

  Winona tossed her head.

  Miss Paxton called for “Position.” She smiled at Tib.

  “You may pick the opening song, Thelma,” she said. “That is, if you will turn around and face the front.”

  Tib picked, Onward Christian Soldiers. And she turned around and faced the front, but only for a moment. When the singing began, she twisted about to stare at Winona. Betsy and Tacy were staring at her too. Betsy was not singing the right words of the hymn. She was singing (but softly, so that no one could hear):

  “Take us, take us, take us,

  Take us to the show,

  Take us, take us, take us,

  To Uncle Tom, you know.”

  After the hymn came the prayer. Betsy and Tacy consulted with their eyes as to whether it would be sinful to hypnotize while praying. Deciding that it wouldn’t be, they put their hands over their eyes reverently but stared through their fingers at their victim. Tib, when she saw what they were doing, did the same.

  After the prayer came physical exercises. Tom was asked to open all the windows, and the boys and girls stood and jerked their arms up and down, out and back, in time to Miss Paxton’s “One, two. One, two.”

  Betsy jerked her arms in time to, “Take us. Take us.” She mouthed the words to Tacy who began to say them too. Both of them stared unceasingly at Winona. Tib turned around to stare.

  “Face front, Thelma,” Miss Paxton interrupted her counting to cry.

  Reluctantly Tib faced front.

  When the class sat down, Miss Paxton folded her hands on the desk. She looked around brightly.

  “I heard some interesting news this morning,” she said. “A member of our class, Thelma Muller, had a ride in the new automobile that reached town yesterday.”

  She smiled at Tib. But Tib looked blank.

  “Did you enjoy it?” Miss Paxton asked.

  “It was all right,” said Tib.

  “Would you like to come up front and tell us about it?”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Miss Paxton,” Tib replied.

  Miss Paxton looked crestfallen, and also surprised. Tib was anything but shy. Usually she enjoyed an opportunity to appear before the class. Winona looked mystified too, and Betsy and Tacy, whom Miss Paxton had expected to see puffed up with pride, were yawning.

  “In that case,” said Miss Paxton, to end an awkward pause, “we will study geography.”

  With a series of thuds and bangs, the big geography books were brought out and opened. Quiet descended on the room. Stealthily, Tib took a sideways pose again. Instead of looking at the New England states, she looked at Winona.

  Tacy sat turned to the right. Her face framed by her long red curls, she gazed fervently at Winona. Betsy sat turned to the left. Leaning on one elbow, she stared at Winona too.

  Winona shifted uneasily. She looked around once or twice.

  “Now,” said Miss Paxton, “you may close your books. Betsy, will you name the New England states?” Betsy jumped up.

  “Take us. Take us. Take us,” she began.

  “What did you say?” Miss Paxton asked sharply.

  “Excuse me, Miss Paxton. That was a mistake. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont …”

  Next they studied arithmetic. Again Tib studied half turned around.

  “Thelma,” said Miss Paxton, “I don’t know what’s got into you today. Please face the front and look at your book instead of at Winona.”

  Tib flung Betsy and Tacy a pleading look. She turned to the front. Betsy and Tacy kept on staring. Winona was like a mouse between two cats.

  At recess Betsy and Tacy and Tib sat with their backs to the high board fence that marked off the girls’ yard. Their legs were stuck out stiff and straight in front of them. They sat motionless, staring at Winona.

  She was playing Prisoners’ Base, and whenever she flashed past them on long jaunty legs, she glanced quickly to see whether they were staring. They always were.

  The bell rang and the children crowded into line. Winona pulled four tickets from the pocket of her dress.

  “‘Comps,’” she said, tossing her black locks. “They’re for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’ve got three to give away.”

  She turned around to see whether Betsy and Tacy and Tib were listening. They were. They were listening, and they were staring with marble-like eyes. Their lips were moving soundlessly.

  After recess came the reading lesson. While the others, in turn, droned through The Courtship of Miles Standish, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib stared at Winona.

  “Thelma Muller, you are to look toward the front,” Miss Paxton said.

  “Tacy Kelly. Please sit straight in your seat. You aren’t looking toward the front either.”

  “Betsy Ray. Look toward the front. What ails you three today?”

  Beneath her desk, Winona got out the tickets. She spread them into a fan; she built a little house with them; she showed them to the boy in front of her and to the girl behind. Now and then she glanced at Betsy, Tacy, and Tib with nervous bravado.

  At last the bell announced that it was time for the noon departure. Miss Paxton rapped on her desk.

  “Position! Rise! Turn! March!”

  The grade formed into two lines and marched into the hall, but even in this orderly procession Tib turned around to stare. Betsy leaned out from her place in line to stare, and so did Tacy. Glances like bullets shot toward Winona.

  Winona brought out her tickets again. She flourished them defiantly.

  “‘Comps,’” she called to Herbert Humphreys in the boys’ line. “For Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Don’t you wish you were me?”

  “Who’re you taking, Winona?” Herbert Humphreys asked.

  “I haven’t decided,” said Winona. Her teeth gleamed wickedly. She looked down the line toward Betsy
and up the line toward Tib.

  They were staring of course. They were staring harder than they had ever stared before. Their eyes were almost popping from their heads with their agonized concentration.

  “I know who I won’t take,” Winona said loudly.

  “Who?” Herbert Humphreys asked.

  “People who stare at me all the time,” Winona said.

  She put the tickets back into her pocket.

  4

  More about Winona’s Tickets

  ETSY, TACY, and Tib scarcely spoke, going home at noon.

  “It didn’t work,” Tib said, blaming no one, just stating a fact.

  “No. It didn’t work,” admitted Tacy.

  “We won’t try to hypnotize her any more,” said Betsy.

  That was all they said. They parted with unhappy nods.

  After dinner they walked back to school still unsmiling. During the afternoon they were quiet and subdued. Tib faced toward the front, and none of them looked at Winona. Even when she counted her tickets and made a little pack of them and flipped it in all directions, they did not look at her except out of the corners of their eyes.

  After school they went to Tacy’s house because Mrs. Kelly was baking. It was a sight to see the plump loaves of golden brown bread pulled from the oven and buttered. Mrs. Kelly took the loaves out of their pans and set them on a clean cloth to butter them. Betsy’s mouth watered when the butter melted and ran in rich streams down the nutlike crusts of the loaves. When the bread was cool enough to cut, Mrs. Kelly gave a soft piece to each of them. She gave one to Paul who ran in from the bonfire he was tending. And she gave one to Katie who was helping her as usual. Katie always helped her mother after school these days. Mary and Celia were typewriter girls now and away from home all day. Katie was as cheerful about work as though it were play. She seemed to like helping her mother with the bread.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib began to feel better when they had buttered their bread and spread honey on it and gone out to the pump in Tacy’s back yard.

  This was a favorite place with them. The wooden platform made a comfortable seat, and they could look up at the encircling hills where the softwood trees were turning red and yellow, making bright bouquets against the green. Smoke from Paul’s bonfire scented the air that was as warm and golden as their bread.