Tacy suggested an afternoon picnic.
“All right. I’ll bring my Kodak. And I’ll stop by for Tib.”
“I’ll ’phone her you’re coming so that she can have a lunch packed.”
“Do. The Mullers are such good providers. What’s the state of the Kelly larder?”
“Oh,” said Tacy, “fair. I’ll put some cocoa in the pail.” They had a special, battered, smoke-blackened pail in which they always made cocoa on their picnics.
Walking toward Hill Street, Betsy thought how long she and Tacy had been having picnics.
“It’s thirteen years now since we met each other at my fifth birthday party. And we started picnicking the very first summer.”
There was nothing like a picnic! she reflected. If you were happy, it made you happier. If you were unhappy, it blew your troubles away.
Passing Lincoln Park, she arrived at Tib’s chocolate-colored house. When she and Tacy were children, they had thought this a mansion, and its ornate style had indeed been the height of elegance. It had a wide porch, a tower, numerous bay windows, and a pane of ruby glass over the front door.
Tib had seemed like a story-book princess, and she seemed so still, Betsy thought, when Tib came running over the green lawn. She was slender and swaying, above ankle-length skirts which fluttered as she ran. Her clothes were fragile, lace-trimmed, and beribboned. Her blond hair, bleached by the sun to a straw tint, was dressed in little puffs which were held in place by a wide band tied around her head. This band was the very newest fashion.
“Liebchen! I’m so glad you’re back!” She hugged Betsy warmly. “I’ve been making such a lunch! Deviled eggs, Kartoffel Salat, Leber Wurst….”
“You’re the most deceptive character,” Betsy interrupted. “You look as though you lived on butterfly wings and you talk about Leber Wurst.”
They went inside, where Betsy greeted Mrs. Muller and Tib’s brothers, Fred and Hobbie. Mrs. Muller was blond and stocky; Fred was blond and slender; Hobbie, blond and dimpled. Betsy went into the kitchen to speak to Matilda, the hired girl.
Tib brought out a bulging basket. Betsy picked up her own basket and the Kodak, and they started for Hill Street.
Tacy, smiling radiantly, met them in the vacant lot. She looked tall, approaching. She was, in fact, taller than Betsy. Her auburn hair was wound about her head in coronet braids, not so fashionable as pompadours or puffs, but very well suited to Tacy. She had large blue eyes which could brim with laughter one minute, and the next be wistful or shy. Real Irish eyes, Mrs. Ray often said.
“Tacy,” said Betsy. “Do you know that you’re getting awfully pretty?”
“I was thinking that, too,” cried Tib. “Why, an artist would like to paint your picture the way you look right now!”
“I’ll snap it after we get up on the hill,” said Betsy.
“Be Gorrah!” cried Tacy. “It’s a foine picture they’ll be taking of the Colleen from Hill Street.”
Tacy affected an Irish brogue when she felt especially silly. She and Betsy loved to act silly, and Tib laughed at all their jokes, which made her a gratifying third.
The Kelly house at the end of Hill Street had seemed big to Betsy once because it was so much bigger than the yellow cottage across the street in which she had grown up. But looking at it now, low and rambling, its white paint fading under the reddening vines, Betsy realized that it was somewhat small for the big family it had to house.
She had always loved the merry crowded house. Warmth and comfort enveloped her whenever she entered the door. All the Kellys loved her; they petted and teased her as though she were still a little girl.
Today only Mrs. Kelly was at home. A large, gentle woman with a tender mouth like Tacy’s, she sat with her mountain of darning in the window of the dining room. This big bow window was the heart of the house. Here Mr. Kelly sat in the evening with his newspaper, here on Sunday he played his violin. Here Betsy and Tacy used to cut out paper dolls, looking up at the overhanging hills.
The Kelly house had few of the so-called modern improvements. It was lighted by lamps, there was a pump in the dooryard. But the views from the windows would have graced a castle.
“Mrs. Kelly,” Betsy said, when she had kissed her, “I never realized when I was little that your house had such lovely views.”
“I’ve heard Papa say that he bought the house for the views,” Mrs. Kelly replied.
“Well, I’m certainly glad he bought it,” said Tacy. “What if we hadn’t moved to Hill Street? What if we still lived in Mazomanie, Wisconsin? Why, Betsy, we might not even know each other!”
“I lived in Wisconsin,” Tib observed. “You might have known me, anyway.”
“And I suppose you wouldn’t have missed me at all!” cried Betsy. “Listen to them, Mrs. Kelly! Heartless creatures! Practically plotting to get rid of me.”
Mrs. Kelly laughed indulgently.
Tacy brought out the pail and Tib said it was too hot for cocoa, but Betsy and Tacy shouted her down.
“No respect for tradition.”
“We always have cocoa.”
Laughing and wrangling, they started up the steep road behind Betsy’s old house, the road which had once seemed the longest, most adventuresome in the world. There had been just one white house on the Big Hill in those days. Now there were several modern cottages. Change had not yet touched The Secret Lane, however. This ran along the summit, a twin row of thickly leaved beech trees.
Beyond it, they came out suddenly on a wide, bright view. The hilltop overlooked a valley so capacious that it seemed empty, although it held scattered farms and a huddle of small houses known as Little Syria. In the distance, the river wandered.
“Of all the places we used to play when we were children, I love this the most,” Betsy said.
They stretched out on the hillside, a slanting coppery sea of goldenrod. A vireo far above them sang continuously and monotonously, like a dull woman talking.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib began to talk. They talked about their summers—Milwaukee, Mazomanie, and Murmuring Lake. They talked about being seniors. They talked about boys. At least, Betsy and Tib talked about boys. Boys didn’t interest Tacy.
However, she volunteered the information that a famous athlete named Ralph Maddox was coming to high school this fall. She had heard her brothers say so. He was coming from St. John, where he had been the star of the football team.
“I hope we can get him for the Zets,” she said.
“You want him for the Zets? I’ll make a note of it. Just leave it to me,” said Tib, patting her yellow hair.
Betsy told them she had been corresponding with Joe Willard.
“How did that happen?” asked Tib.
“How did it happen? He wrote to me, of course. You don’t think I’d write to him first, do you?”
“Do you think you’ll be going with him this year?”
“No idea,” said Betsy. She had announced last year that she was going to do just that, and then he had gone with Phyllis Brandish! She wasn’t going to tempt fate again.
“There’s a Joseph Willard who writes for the Minneapolis Tribune,” Tacy remarked.
“May be related. Do you think so, Betsy?”
“Um hum,” answered Betsy, feeling uncomfortable. She wasn’t accustomed to keeping secrets from Tacy and Tib. She jumped up. “Let’s get some pictures. Maybe we ought to start the fire first. Background for your portrait, Tacy.”
They gathered dry wood and made a fire which poured smoky fragrance into the air. While Tacy adjusted the pail, Tib spread a red cloth and set out the contents of the baskets.
Betsy focused her camera. “Get set now!”
Tacy jumped up and put one hand behind her head, the other on her hip.
“No! No!” cried Betsy. “You’re not Carmen. You’re the Irish Colleen. Remember?”
“Be jabbers, that’s right!” said Tacy, and put both hands on her waist, arms akimbo.
Tib pushed her down. Tacy’s long red braids c
ame loose. Around her face little tendrils of hair curled like vines. She looked up at Betsy, her eyes full of laughter, the skirts of her sailor suit cascading about her. Betsy snapped.
“Tacy Kelly at her silliest!” she said.
She snapped Tib on a rock, holding out her skirts. Tacy snapped Betsy tilting the jug of lemonade. Tib snapped Betsy and Tacy feeding each other sandwiches.
When the film was used up, they collapsed in laughter.
“Gosh, how silly!”
“Does us good. We’re getting too darned serious.”
“We’re getting too darned old. Gee, seniors this fall!”
“Let’s eat. We have to get back early, you know. Carney’s taking us riding.”
Carney, informed by telephone of Betsy’s whereabouts, picked her up at the Kellys’. Tacy and Tib piled into the Sibley auto, too, and they went in search of the rest of the Crowd…the feminine portion of it. This group continued the same in character—lively, exuberant, loyal—although its personnel changed from year to year.
Carney, this fall, was going out of it. The Crowd would miss Carney, with her twinkling eyes. Her side lawn was a gathering place; her automobile dedicated to the Crowd.
Hazel Smith was just coming into the group. She was a plain, freckle-faced girl, mirthful and breezy.
Alice Morrison was tall, with rosy cheeks and thick blond hair. She was quiet, but no one in the Crowd enjoyed fun more wholeheartedly than Alice.
Winona Root was tall, dark, and debonaire. She had magic in her fingers at the piano.
Irma Biscay was rounded and alluring. She was a sweet-tempered, merry girl, but the attraction she held for the opposite sex kept her from being very popular with girls. She had not yet returned from her vacation, and the Crowd, cruising along the shadowy streets, discussed the source of this attraction. Betsy, whose hair was straight, laid it to her curly hair. Tib, who was tiny, felt sure it was her lovely figure.
“It’s her form,” Tib asserted vehemently. “Her form is like that Miss Anna Held’s who takes the milk baths.”
Alice suggested that Irma’s success might spring from the fact that Mrs. Biscay was such a good cook. But Betsy scoffed at that.
“Look at Anna! The boys come to our cookie jar as though they owned it. Yet I don’t slay everyone. Irma makes me think of the Lorelei. You know, Tib, in that German song. Let one of our beaus see much of Irma and…good-by! He’s gone, just as though he had been dashed against a rock.”
Tib started to sing.
“Ich weiss nicht was sol es bedeuten….” And the rest joined in, making up English words. The Crowd loved to sing, rolling through the night in Carney’s auto. Winona started “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” and they were singing this with enthusiasm when the auto broke down. (They seldom took a ride anywhere without the auto breaking down.) Fortunately they were near the Rays’, and the girls pushed the machine to Betsy’s door, singing at the tops of their voices.
They found an indignant group on the porch. Tony was there, sprawled in the hammock, and Dennis Farisy, who looked like a cherub but was not at all cherubic, and Cab Edwards, who had once been Dennie’s inseparable companion…but Cab seemed older and more mature since he had started work at the family furniture store.
“What do you mean, not being around tonight?” he shouted now, indignantly.
“We were just going home, and it would have served you right,” yelled Dennie.
“We wouldn’t have stayed five minutes more,” drawled Tony, swinging luxuriously.
Winona ran up the steps and dumped him out of the hammock. They started tusseling. Everybody went inside and Winona sat down at the piano. They made fudge. They stood around the piano and sang. They rolled up the rugs and danced.
“All out by ten o’clock,” Mrs. Ray called down the stairs.
The Ray family was really back from the lake.
4
The Rays’ Telephone Rings
IRMA CAME BACK, as bafflingly attractive as ever. Tom, who had been vacationing in the East, returned to get ready for Cox Military. Dave, Stan, and Lloyd, who had gone down the Mississippi in canoes, reappeared, tanned and full of stories. And at the Majestic Motion Picture Theater, at Heinz’s Ice Cream Parlor, and the other haunts of the young, Betsy looked around for Joe. His letters had stopped coming as abruptly as they had started, and the series of stories in the Tribune had ended, too. Probably, she thought, he was out at Butternut Center with his uncle and aunt. She wondered why he didn’t call her up.
All the talk was of being seniors.
“It’s going to seem queer to be seniors,” the girls agreed, looking ahead to that day, not far off now, when they would pass through the wide, arched doorway of the high school wearing their new dignity.
“Poor me! I’ll be a freshie again,” Carney mourned.
She and her mother had returned from Minneapolis, where they had stayed at a hotel and had bought clothes in the city stores. The girls flocked to her house to hear all about it, Betsy accompanied by Margaret, whom she was taking to Miss Cobb’s house for her first piano lesson.
“What did you buy?”
“Oh, a tweed suit with a brown velvet collar and a brown velvet tricorn Gage hat.”
“Any new party dresses?”
“I have,” announced Carney grandly, “a store-bought party dress! It’s pale pink silk with elbow sleeves and a square neck. It’s a dear. Come on! I’ll show it to you.”
There was a rush for the stairs.
Ascending, they heard the hum of a sewing machine.
“Miss Mix is making my school dresses and underwear. I wish you could see the underwear! It’s made of sheeting!” Carney giggled. “Mother wants it strong so it can stand a college laundry. That’s what it is to have a New Englander for a parent.”
“Good thing it isn’t your trousseau,” said Tib, who liked lingerie as delicate as cobwebs, lace-trimmed and strung with ribbon.
They piled into Carney’s room, where the store-bought party dress was reverently inspected. The suit was displayed, too, and Winona tried on the brown Gage hat, setting it at a ridiculous angle and parading up and down. Margaret struggled to keep her smiles from turning into undignified chuckles when Winona, pretending to be Carney, snatched Larry Humphreys’ photograph from the bureau and pressed it madly to her middy blouse.
Betsy jumped up and spoke in a bass voice, obviously representing a Vassar dignitary.
“No, Miss Sibley,” she said. “Do not bring that Howard Chandler Christie profile inside the sacred portals of Vassar.”
“I always turn it to the wall when I’m studying, your honor,” squeaked Winona.
“It makes no difference. Vassar is a girls’ college. Leave men behind, all ye who enter here!”
Carney made a dash for Winona and succeeded in wresting the picture away.
“You’re just too silly!” she cried.
“Silly, am I?” said Winona. “Just for that I’ll go home and wash my hair.” That broke up the party.
“Margaret and I are going to Miss Cobb’s,” said Betsy.
“I’ll walk down with you,” Carney volunteered. “I’m going that way, matching ribbons. Heavens, I never thought that going away to college involved so much matching of ribbons!”
Carney, Betsy, and Margaret started down Broad Street under the high trees.
“It’s funny to be teased about a boy you haven’t even seen for three years,” Carney remarked.
Larry and Herbert Humphreys had moved from Deep Valley three years before. Herbert and Betsy were great friends. But there was no romantic feeling between them such as had always existed between Larry and Carney. Carney had never liked any other boy so well.
“Have you heard from him lately?” asked Betsy.
“We still write every week.” Carney had a dimple in one cheek which flickered mischievously now. “He wishes he was going to West Point.”
“Ah ha!” said Betsy. “Across the river from Vassar.”
/> “But,” said Carney, “he’s going to Stanford, all the way across the continent and bursting with girls.”
Her smile vanished and she turned to Betsy, frowning.
“I want to see Larry,” she said firmly. “I have to find out whether I still like him. Maybe he’s changed. I feel as though I couldn’t ever…get married to anyone else until I know.”
“Have you told him that?” asked Betsy.
“No, I haven’t. But I should think he’d feel the same way…about seeing me, I mean.”
“I’d like to be a mouse under a chair when you two meet,” said Betsy.
They reached the long flight of wooden steps which led to Miss Cobb’s cottage and Carney turned to Margaret, whose eyes were shining with excitement at the prospect of beginning music lessons.
“Good luck!” Carney said. “I’ll bet you begin with middle C.”
Carney had studied with Miss Cobb, of course. Most of Deep Valley’s boys and girls began their piano study with Miss Cobb, a large stately woman with light hair combed smoothly down on either side of a calm, kindly face. There had been a girl and three boys in the little cottage once, children of Miss Cobb’s sister who had died. Miss Cobb had broken her own engagement to marry and had taken the whole brood to raise. The two oldest had passed away with their mother’s complaint. Leonard was ill with it now, out in the Colorado mountains. Only Bobby, the sturdy pink-cheeked youngest of the lot, lived on with his aunt.
Betsy was glad to be back in the little low-ceiled parlor with the upright piano and the grand piano and the scent of geraniums. Miss Cobb told her that Leonard had enjoyed her letters.
“I’ve enjoyed his letters, too, Miss Cobb,” Betsy replied. She had learned from Leonard’s letters—she had learned about courage.
He was not, Betsy suspected, getting any better. But there weren’t any complaints about the pain or the discomfort or the boredom. He told instead about the funny things that happened around the sanatorium.
He was interested in music. His letters were full of comments on phonograph records, musicians, and musical compositions. There wasn’t a word about not being able to develop his own talent, about how sad it was to be young and full of plans and have a curtain drop across your future like the curtain of a theater…only that, Betsy thought, always came at the end of something and Leonard’s life had just begun.