Heaven to Betsy / Betsy in Spite of Herself

  At the corner they found Cab waiting.

  “Well of all the bums!” said Herbert. “Can’t raise a dime to take a girl himself, so he horns in on me and my girl.”

  “I thought you needed a chaperone,” Cab grinned. “Betsy’s getting to be a terrible flirt.”

  “These poetesses!” said Herbert. “When they get started they’re worse than any girls.”

  “You two behave yourselves!” said Betsy blissfully.

  She floated into the high school between them. And in the cloakroom she encountered Tacy who remarked at once upon how pretty she looked.

  “If only I could wear blue silk mull all the time!” Betsy sighed, fluffing out her curls.

  Everyone looked festive, the girls in their prettiest dresses, the boys in their Sunday suits. The women teachers looked curiously unnatural wearing trailing silk dresses instead of shirtwaist suits. And the upper hall looked unnatural, decorated with potted palms, and with rugs and cushions brought from people’s houses by the decorating committee. An unnatural air of propriety hung over it.

  But presently a program of games was begun. Ruth and Jacob, Going to Jerusalem, Bird, Beast or Fish, Jenkins Says Thumbs Up. The air of propriety gave way to increasing noise and confusion. Betsy, having a very good time, forgot about her curls and the becomingness of blue silk mull.

  In the game of Pass the Ring she found herself next to Joe Willard. This surprised her for he was not much in evidence outside of classes. He worked after school, Cab had told her. He worked at the creamery; couldn’t even go out for football. He didn’t have much to do with girls. Winona had tried in vain to fascinate him.

  Knowing that she looked pretty now, feeling successful and gay, Betsy smiled.

  “How do you like high school?” she asked.

  “I like it. Do you?”

  “I think it’s just Heaven.”

  “Heaven to Betsy!” he said.

  She paid this sally the tribute of a laugh so hearty that he laughed himself. The hunter found the ring just then, and there was a scramble while a new hunter took his place in the center, then Joe Willard asked: “How did your family like the presents?”

  “Crazy about them. My mother adored the butter dish.” She had a daring impulse. “Wouldn’t you like to come to see how it looks on our dining room table?”

  “Maybe I could walk home with you tonight and find out where you live?” he answered. He said it stiffly as though it were an effort for him to make the request.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” said Betsy. “But I came with a boy…two boys, that is.” She didn’t mean to sound braggy, but she realized at once that he might think she had. She felt confused, and all the more so when he said, “Request withdrawn,” not as though he had thought she was bragging but as though he thought she had rebuffed him which she certainly, Betsy thought indignantly, had not.

  Unfortunately at that moment the ring was found again, and when the circle broke he streaked away so rapidly that she did not have a chance to say one conciliating word. She was put out. She had liked him so much at Butternut Center, and since high school opened she had not been able to get a word from him, and now their first conversation had ended badly.

  “Refreshments will be served in the Domestic Science Room,” Miss Bangeter called. “Form for the Grand March.”

  Betsy found Tacy.

  “Let’s fix our hair,” she said, and along with most of the other girls they crowded into the cloakroom and strove for a glance at the mirror.

  They were returning to the hall, properly beautified, when Betsy clutched Tacy’s arm.

  “Betsy! What’s the matter?”

  “The T.D.S.,” Betsy whispered urgently.

  “Where? Where?” Tacy looked in all directions.

  “Over there by the piano. See him? He would come just in time for refreshments!”

  Tacy stared eagerly. The curly black hair, the laughing eyes, the slouching pose were just as Betsy had described them. Tacy did not feel the magic Betsy felt, but she was sympathetically enthusiastic.

  “He’s very nice looking. He seems older than us.”

  A teacher at the piano plunged into a rousing march. Herbert and Betsy, Cab and Tacy joined the line which wound around the hall and down the stairs, past Mercury, to the Domestic Science Room.

  Betsy loved to march. She always went lightly on the tips of her toes, and tonight she was almost dancing. The Tall Dark Stranger had come; he was here; and she looked so pretty, wearing blue silk mull. When they reached the Domestic Science Room she looked around. He was there, and he was still alone. As at Christian Endeavor, he was surveying the scene with a superior gaze.

  Betsy and Tacy, Cab and Herbert filled their plates with sandwiches, pickles, olives and Athena wafers. They received punch from Herbert’s pretty mother, and perched on a table in the corner of the room. Betsy still had that glorious feeling of being successful, attractive. She waved to Alice and Winona who, with two boys, were on an adjacent table. She hardly glanced at Tony Markham and yet she knew that he was watching her. He had surveyed the whole room and his eyes had come to rest on her.

  Now he helped himself generously to sandwiches and sauntered up to the table where they were perched. Betsy didn’t feel frightened. She had known that he would come. He shifted the plate to his left hand and saluted with his right.

  “Christian Endeavor!” he said, addressing Herbert. “Who’s your girl?”

  “Christian Endeavor, my eye!” said Herbert angrily. “You go way back and sit down.”

  “Come, come!” said Tony. “I’m a stranger here.”

  At that Tacy poked Betsy, her eyes brimming with fun, and Betsy laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Tony. “What’s so funny about me being a stranger?”

  “It’s a secret,” Betsy answered, “and you might as well not ask us what it is, for we wouldn’t tell you in a thousand years.”

  “The room is large. Vamoose! Skiddoo!” said Herbert.

  But Tony leaned against the wall, his eyes on Betsy.

  “Do you want the scrub team to go into action?” Cab asked Herbert, flexing his arms.

  “I can handle him with one arm tied behind me,” Herbert said.

  “Maybe,” said Betsy, “we ought to let him stay. For hospitality’s sake. The honor of Deep Valley High School.”

  “Do you go to high school?” asked Herbert relenting. “Or are you just horning in, like you did at Christian Endeavor?”

  “I’m starting next week,” said Tony. “Can’t get out of it any longer. And because I’ve changed schools, I’m put into your pee wee freshman class.”

  As before, at Christian Endeavor, his smile made his rude words acceptable. Herbert grinned.

  “I’ll bet you flunked whatever school you went to.”

  “They couldn’t catch me long enough to make me take the exams. So I have to start the weary grind all over.”

  “I give in. I’m Herbert Humphreys.”

  “Caleb Edwards.”

  “Tacy Kelly.”

  “Betsy Ray.”

  “Little Ray of Sunshine, eh?” asked Tony. Betsy blushed.

  “Going out for football?” Herbert asked.

  “Scrub team any good?”

  “Any good? It’s got Humphreys and Edwards. Need I say more?”

  “Nary a word. Nary a word.”

  Herbert and Cab, Betsy was glad to see, were beginning to like Tony. He was a master at their form of banter. He started presently on Tacy’s red hair and as soon as the boys apprised him of the fact that Betsy had manufactured curls, he teased her harder than they did. When the party broke up he joined them on the homeward walk.

  Tacy had gone off with Alice. Herbert walked on one side of Betsy and Cab on the other, and Tony walked on the outside quite as though he belonged in their group, looking at her with laughing eyes.

  “Aren’t we asked in?” he inquired at the Ray steps.

  “Not as late as this,” said Betsy.
“It’s eleven o’clock.”

  “After Christian Endeavor you’re asked in,” said Herbert.

  “And boy!” said Cab. “How her sister bangs the ivories!”

  “Well! I may drop in,” said Tony, quite as though he had been invited.

  “I may drop in!” Betsy whispered as she went into the darkened house. She was glad that Julia was out at a dance, and for once she almost regretted her mother’s sociable habit of coming into her room after parties. She wanted to think about this one instead of talking about it.

  She told her mother…she hoped casually…that there was a new boy in school named Tony Markham, But she didn’t say that he might drop in for Sunday night lunch. There was always room for one more, and it might be bad luck to make special preparations.

  On Sunday she refused Christian Endeavor. She told Cab and Herbert they could come up afterwards if they liked. Evening approached, but she did not even change her dress. And she must have cajoled destiny properly, for when the doorbell rang Cab and Herbert were not alone on the porch. Tony was with them.

  “Waiting for us here,” Herbert said. “Didn’t have the nerve to come in alone.”

  Tony laughed lazily.

  “I told you before…I’m a stranger.”

  Tall and dark he certainly was, but he did not long remain a stranger. From the first step across the threshold he felt at home in the Ray house. He fell in love with the family, and they with him.

  His appreciation of onion sandwiches won Mr. Ray; Mrs. Ray enjoyed his cheerful impertinence; Margaret liked him because he liked Washington, and Washington crawled up to his shoulder and licked his ear.

  His rich baritone voice delighted Julia, and he was a real asset to the group around the piano. He knew all the songs The Crowd sang: “Shy Ann,” “Crocodile Isle,” “Cause I’m Lonesome,” “My Wild Irish Rose.”

  Julia had a new song that evening, a waltz:

  “Dreaming, dreaming,

  Of you sweetheart, I am dreaming…”

  Tony threw back his head and his resonant voice rolled about the room. Fred was annoyed, but he had no need to be, for Julia’s manner toward Tony was markedly sisterly. Betsy had discovered him; he was Betsy’s property.

  When the time came to say good night, Tony looked around the glowing music room.

  “Say!” he drawled. “I’m going to just about live at this house.”

  “You big stiff!” said Cab. “I live here.”

  Humphreys slapped his chest.

  “Where Humphreys is,” he said, “there’s no room for Markham. Begone now, and don’t come back.”

  “See you tomorrow,” said Tony looking at Betsy with a special look from his laughing black eyes.

  “T.D.S., T.D.S.,” Betsy whispered to herself.

  “That Tony Markham is nice, isn’t he?” said Julia as Betsy wound her hair on Magic Wavers.

  “Yes, he’s a cute kid,” said Betsy carelessly.

  After that Tony came to the Ray house almost every day. He came as faithfully as Cab and Herbert did.

  14

  The Trip to Murmuring Lake

  ON A SUNDAY IN MID-OCTOBER, Mr. and Mrs. Ray and Margaret attended the Episcopal Church. Julia was singing a solo, and the event fell fortuitously upon the Rays’ twentieth wedding anniversary. It seemed intended that they should worship that day in the church to which Julia and Betsy now gave so much of their time.

  “All that kneeling down and getting up, kneeling down and getting up! But I can stand it if you can,” Mr. Ray grumbled to his wife.

  “I think our church is more sensible,” said Margaret. “Don’t you, Betsy?” But Betsy did not answer.

  Like Julia she now loved the new church. And it was not just a matter of wearing a black robe and a black four-cornered hat, of marching down the aisle in candlelight and singing. She loved the kneeling down to pray and the standing up to praise.

  “O All ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord…” That was her favorite canticle. As she sang breathlessly, calling upon Angels, Heavens, Waters that be above the firmament, Sun and Moon, Showers and Dew, Ice and Snow, Light and Darkness, Lightnings and Clouds, Mountains and Hills, Green Things upon the Earth, Wells, Seas and Floods, Whales, Fowls of the Air, Beasts and Cattle, and the Children of Men to “praise him and magnify him forever,” the panorama of the earth and the seasons seemed to wheel majestically before her eyes.

  They sang this today, and glancing down she saw her father looking patient and Margaret looking polite.

  “Julia’s right. People just are different about the kind of churches they like,” Betsy thought.

  Mr. Ray perked up when Julia sang her solo at the offertory. He and Mrs. Ray tried to hide their pride, but it was difficult, for Julia’s voice soared and she looked rapt and saintly.

  Larry and Herbert were in church with their father and mother. Betsy pretended not to notice them, emulating Bonnie at Christian Endeavor.

  When she and Julia, having changed from vestments into fall coats and tarns, came out of the church, the Humphreys were standing beside the Ray surrey. Ordinarily the Rays walked to church but today they were bound for Murmuring Lake. This had been Mrs. Ray’s home as a girl; she had been married there; and the trip was in honor of the wedding anniversary.

  “Going to be gone all day?” Mr. Humphreys asked.

  “Yep. Anna has the day off, and the front door key’s in my pocket.”

  “Which is funny,” said Mrs. Ray, “for we never lock the back door.”

  “Having dinner at the Inn?”

  “That’s the plan. Then we’re going across the lake to Jule’s old home. We’ll drive back late and rustle up some supper. We do it every year.”

  “It’s a sweet idea,” Mrs. Humphreys said.

  “It’s a bum idea,” said Herbert in an undertone to Betsy. “Cab and Tony and I don’t like it a little bit.”

  Betsy gave him a gratified smile.

  Rolling down Broad Street Betsy relaxed in the back seat of the surrey between Julia and Margaret. It was delicious to hear that Tony would mind her absence. She treated him just as she treated the other boys, and not even her mother and Julia did more than suspect that she had a special feeling for him. But she had a very special feeling.

  Tacy knew it, of course. To Tacy Betsy poured out all her sensations. When they did homework together, eulogies of Tony came between algebra problems. Tacy stayed all night, and they talked about Tony until long past midnight. If Tacy grew bored she never showed it. She listened with inexhaustible sympathy, always pointing out in the most heart-warming way how quickly and successfully Betsy had added Tony to her train.

  It was true that Tony showed some liking for her; his teasing was affectionate. But there was something big brotherish in his attitude that Betsy did not like. She kept hoping this would change, and give place to an attitude more like Fred’s to Julia, Larry’s to Carney.

  She did not mind being away from him today. Just thinking about him was almost more satisfactory. Besides she loved this trip to Murmuring Lake. They took it at all seasons; the Inn was a favorite vacation ground. But the October anniversary trip was the nicest.

  The countryside seemed to be on fire. The maples had the red and gold of flames. Orange colored pumpkins glimmered among shocks of corn and Mr. Ray stopped and bought one for Margaret’s Halloween.

  Murmuring Lake was encircled by two golden rings as the trees on the shore looked down at their mates in the water.

  “Just the thing for a wedding,” Mr. Ray pointed out.

  The Inn with its flock of cottages looked like a hen surrounded by chicks, and there was an excellent dinner in which a real hen was served with dumplings. For dessert there were two kinds of pie, ice cream and cake. You could have all four if you wished; and after they had eaten to contentment and beyond, and Mr. Ray had smoked a cigar and Old Mag had had a chance to eat and rest, they drove around the lake to Mrs. Ray’s old home.

  Betsy thought her mother’s girlhoo
d home extremely romantic. Its shady acres were enclosed…except on the lake side…by a white picket fence with an arched gate bearing the sign, “Pleasant Park.” A twin line of evergreens led to the house, the barns and the kitchen garden. There was a rose garden, too, and a little summer house covered with vines.

  “But I didn’t have half the fun here that you girls have on High Street,” Mrs. Ray said. “One reason I’m so easy with you is that my stepfather was so strict with us.”

  By “us” she meant herself and Uncle Keith. It was a family legend that Step-grandfather Newton’s severity had caused Uncle Keith to run away and go on the stage. He was a boy then, and for years Mrs. Ray had not even known where he was. But they had corresponded since a joyful reunion when he came to Deep Valley playing in Rip Van Winkle.

  With the passing of years Step-grandfather Newton had become much less prickly. Betsy was quite fond of him, in fact. But she saw him only rarely now; he and her grandmother lived in California. “Pleasant Park” had long since been sold to a farmer. The farmer’s wife was hospitable and seemed to enjoy the annual October visit from the Rays.

  “This is the bay window where we stood when we were married,” Mrs. Ray said as usual. “There never was a happier marriage made.”

  “This is the oak tree she hooked me under,” Mr. Ray said, leading the way across the lawn, ankle deep in leaves, to an oak with leaves the color of Mrs. Ray’s hair.

  “I was camping down by the lake shore,” he went on, “with a bunch of young fellows. We needed salt and knowing Jule Warrington I came up to her house after supper to borrow a cupful. That was my finish, that cup of salt. I didn’t get back to the tent until midnight, and then I was hooked.”

  As usual Mrs. Ray put her arms around him.

  “You’ve never regretted it, have you, darling?”

  “Not for a second,” Mr. Ray answered, and kissed her.

  Julia, Betsy and Margaret knew all this by heart. They looked on benevolently. Strolling back to the house, Julia said to Betsy, “It’s wonderful how much in love Papa and Mamma are.”