Betsy Was a Junior / Betsy and Joe

  And although Tacy came to call for Betsy and ate a muffin for luck, things still didn’t seem natural, for Tib was with her, dancing along in a high-waisted lilac silk skirt and a thin white open-work waist.

  Tib didn’t flush easily as Betsy and Tacy did, but she was so excited today that color burned in her cheeks, making her look even prettier than usual.

  “Meet my friend Tib Muller.” “Meet my friend Tib Muller,” Betsy kept saying with elaborate carelessness along the crowded, clamorous highway which was High Street on the first day of school.

  Tony sauntered up; Cab and Dennie came together, to give each other courage; Carney came, welcoming, with Irma, Alice and Winona.

  In the Social Room the crowd around them was so deep that Betsy had no chance to look for Joe. She hadn’t forgotten her plans, however. They were written in her mind as well as in her journal.

  She caught a glimpse of Phyllis Brandish and waved. Phyllis waved negligently in return. Tib’s triumph clouded Phyllis’ arrival in high school and Betsy wondered whether Phyllis minded. But she didn’t look envious.

  The second bell, clanging loudly, drove them from the Social Room. They crowded through the upper hall past the case containing the cups for which the two societies, Philomathian and Zetamathian, competed annually: one for athletics, one for debating and one—as Betsy knew all too well—for essay writing.

  They pushed on to the big assembly room with its alcove overlooking the rooftops of Deep Valley. Betsy, Tacy and Tib found seats together at the back of the junior rows. Miss Bangeter rapped for order and their junior year began.

  4

  Aft Agley

  AFTER A HYMN, sung so lustily that it swam up to the ceiling and out the open windows into the treetops, Miss Bangeter read as usual from the Scriptures. The faculty sat on the platform, and Betsy observed that there were several new teachers. Some of the old ones were gone, and she was thankful that Miss Bangeter was not among the missing.

  There was something noble about this high school principal. She was commandingly tall. A knot of black hair topped a dark hawk-like face which was usually grave, but knew how to flash into humor. Speaking with a Boston accent, she read rapidly but with intense conviction the parable of the sower and the seed.

  After the Lord’s Prayer, said in unison, the students made a quick round of their classrooms for registration.

  Flanked by Tacy and Tib, Betsy went first to her English class. Foundations of English Literature, it was called this year. Mr. Gaston, a sardonic young man who had shepherded Betsy’s class through composition and rhetoric, wasn’t the teacher. He had been removed—rejoicing, it was said—to the science department. Betsy would have him for botany, she saw by a glance at her card.

  She flourished the card toward Tacy.

  “What do you think of this? They changed Gaston to science just in time to give him to us!”

  “We’re fated!” Tacy groaned. Mr. Gaston was an old enemy of Betsy’s.

  The new English teacher was named Gwendolyn Fowler. She had come from Miss Bangeter’s Boston and looked not unlike her, having heavy black hair and white teeth. But she was short, shorter than Betsy. Although young, she was completely poised and looked over the room with penetrating eyes, as though trying to pick out those pupils who would be hungry for what she had to give.

  Joe Willard came into the room and Betsy’s heart gyrated slightly. She poked Tib.

  “There he is.”

  Tib whirled about to stare.

  “No wonder you want to go with him! Who wouldn’t?”

  “Let’s take him away from her, Tib,” whispered Tacy.

  “How can you? I haven’t got him yet,” Betsy whispered back.

  But she would, she resolved.

  He had grown over the summer, and he had changed. It wasn’t only that he was better dressed—although he was. Last year he had been almost shabby. Today he wore a new brown suit and a brown striped shirt with a brown tie.

  He seemed older; perhaps that was it. He had been traveling, of course, working with men. The summer in the harvest fields had hardened his muscles and had tanned him so deeply that his smooth pompadour and heavy eyebrows looked almost white. He had very blue eyes and a strong, well molded face. He walked with a slight, proud swing.

  “He walks as though he knew he was somebody. Well, he is!” thought Betsy.

  Although she liked English and was drawn to Miss Fowler, her attention wandered. She had resolved to speak to Joe and it agitated her, but she wouldn’t let herself off. When the class was dismissed she strolled across the room.

  She acted calm, like Julia, but her color deepened.

  “Hello,” she said.

  His eyes warmed into friendliness. “Hello.”

  “How were the harvest fields?”

  “Remunerative.”

  “Do you know that you’ve changed?” Julia had told her that it was good policy with boys to talk about the boys themselves. But that wasn’t why she asked her question. It burst from her spontaneously.

  “Sure,” said Joe. “I’ve got calluses.” He extended his palms.

  Betsy spread out her own hands, glad that they were listed among her good points.

  “Me, too,” she said. “From rowing on Murmuring Lake.”

  “I don’t see any. Softy!”

  Betsy’s color grew deeper still. She put her hands behind her.

  “Isn’t it a joke that we’re having Gaston for botany? He’s going to have his revenge about those apple blossoms.” One of her quarrels with Mr. Gaston last year had pertained to the color of apple blossoms. Joe had taken her side.

  “I’m sorry I won’t be there to watch it. I’m taking physics.”

  “Grind!”

  “Only softies take botany.” He was laughing teasingly but all at once he stopped and said, “Well, I’ll look for you when we start work on the Essay Contest.”

  “I probably shan’t be chosen this year,” Betsy replied plaintively. “There’s a villainous Philomathian who always beats me. They’ll put a better Zetamathian in. Anyway,” she plunged boldly and smiled, “spring is a long way off.”

  He didn’t rise to this bait; in fact he looked embarrassed, which for Joe Willard, famous for his poise, was most unusual.

  “Oh, they’ll give you another try at it,” he answered lamely and looked so willing to terminate the conversation that Betsy said, “I hope so,” smiled again and left him. He did not find a bantering parting word and this, too, was strange.

  Betsy was puzzled at her failure.

  “How did I look?” she whispered to Tacy as they moved on to the botany classroom.

  “Cute,” said Tacy.

  Tib hooked her arm into Betsy’s on the other side.

  “How did you come out?”

  “Oh, I made a beginning.”

  Betsy wasn’t, however, satisfied with this beginning, and she didn’t know where the trouble lay. If he had acted bored she would have feared that he just didn’t like her any more. But he hadn’t acted bored, he had acted embarrassed.

  “What the dickens?” she wondered, feeling depressed.

  Mr. Gaston looked at her more kindly than of yore. He had a weakness for Julia. Passing mimeographed instructions for herbariums, he asked Betsy softly, “Has your sister left for the University?”

  “Not yet,” said Betsy. She tried to throw into her tone the implication that Julia couldn’t bear to leave Deep Valley because it held Mr. Gaston.

  He nodded gravely, and passed on.

  Betsy and Tacy parted from Tib, who was taking German instead of Latin, and went into the Cicero class. There was another new teacher here, a young Swedish woman named Miss Erickson. Betsy didn’t admire her, although she recognized that Miss Erickson was pretty, with a pompadour like the rising sun. Her light blue eyes were like marbles and her shirt waist suit was forbiddingly neat.

  There was a peculiarity in her speech. She never used a contraction. She said, “can not, do not, shall n
ot,” never, “can’t, don’t, shan’t.”

  “She’ll be hard,” Tacy whispered to Betsy.

  “She’s probably a pill,” Betsy said. Tib had brought the word “pill” from Milwaukee. It was the very newest slang.

  It was good to pass from the chilly air of Miss Erickson’s room to the warm, familiar quarters of Miss Clarke, who had taught them Ancient History and Modern History and this year would teach them the history of the United States. She was a gentle, trusting teacher. She and Betsy and Tacy were good friends, for she was Zetamathian faculty advisor and they were enthusiastic Zetamathians.

  Last of all came Domestic Science. One great advantage to being a junior girl was that you were eligible to take Domestic Science. You went down the broad creaking stairs past the statue of Mercury, and the Domestic Science room was a fascinating place, provided with rows of little stoves, small shining pots and pans. They must each buy three white aprons, Miss Benbow said.

  Miss Benbow wore an immaculate, stiffly starched white uniform, but her face, unlike Miss Erickson’s, was not stiffly starched. It was a little worried, kind, and eager to please.

  “I think I’m going to love Domestic Science,” Betsy said. “I hate housework at home, but it’s different with other kids around.”

  “And we can eat up everything we cook!” Tacy replied.

  “We’ll give handouts to Tib.”

  Tib didn’t take Domestic Science. Her mother thought it would be ridiculous, since Tib had known how to cook for many years.

  They returned to the assembly room for dismissal and to the cloakroom to retrieve their hats. The noon whistles had not yet blown but school was over for the day. The first afternoon was traditionally spent by the Crowd buying books and going to the motion pictures, perhaps with a soda at Heinz’s Restaurant afterwards. Betsy was expecting to follow this routine, but as the school filed out to the stirring strains of the march from Aida played by Carney on the piano she had a sudden thought.

  Joe Willard had always worked at the creamery after school. But “after school” meant four o’clock. Since school ended at noon today, he might have the afternoon free.

  She wouldn’t seek him out. She had gone far enough already. But he might just possibly seek her out. He might regret having turned her off and want to make amends.

  “I’ll just make myself available,” she thought, and suggested casually, “Let’s wait for Carney.”

  Tacy, Tib and Winona agreed.

  They loitered at the wide limestone entrance. It was a warm day. Up and down High Street lawns were still green, gardens were still gaudy. It would have seemed like summer except for

  “…that nameless splendor everywhere

  That wild exhilaration in the air.”

  Betsy knew her Longfellow, but she only thought the lines. She didn’t say them out loud.

  Winona must have had the same feeling.

  “Gee, it’s a swell day!” she said. “We ought to go riding. Maybe Carney will take us all out in her auto.”

  “Why, there’s an auto now!” Tib cried.

  But it wasn’t Carney’s, and it wasn’t Phil’s. It was empty, although surrounded by an interested group.

  Almost immediately, its owner came through the door. She was easily identified, for her hat was tied down by an automobile veil, in a smart bow under one ear. It was Phyllis Brandish, but for a moment Betsy hardly recognized her.

  Phyllis, who was small, with olive skin and heavily fringed yellow-brown eyes like Phil’s, usually had Phil’s sullen expression. But she didn’t look sullen now. Her face was lighted by a glowing smile as it turned up toward the face of the boy who accompanied her.

  He, too, was smiling. And he was so taken up with the laughter between them that he didn’t even see the group of girls. Poised, assured, Joe Willard touched Phyllis Brandish’s arm as he walked with her out to the waiting automobile.

  She climbed into the driver’s seat. He cranked while she pulled down the throttle. And when that was done she moved over. He climbed in and took the wheel.

  The roar and racket of an automobile in the throes of starting blasted against the ears of the waiting students. The fumes of gasoline poisoned the air. Then Joe and Phyllis, in Phyllis’ machine, moved off down High Street, and the group of girls found their voices.

  “Why, Betsy,” Tib began, “I thought…” but Betsy nudged her.

  “Joe Willard and Phyllis Brandish! That’s a new one!” Winona said.

  “It won’t last long, I imagine,” said Tacy, glancing at Betsy.

  But Betsy remembered the glow on Phyllis’ face, the smile in Joe’s eyes. The reason Joe had seemed embarrassed after English class was because he already had a girl. He was going with Phyllis Brandish!

  Betsy felt as though she had had the breath knocked out of her. Maybe she could take him away from Phyllis if she tried, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. That look on Phyllis’ face…! And Phyllis had always seemed so bored and hateful. For all that she had traveled around the world, and had gone to exclusive schools, and had beautiful clothes, this was probably the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her.

  “Besides,” thought Betsy, stiffening stubbornly, “if Joe Willard can afford to go with a girl and he wants it to be Phyllis Brandish, let it be Phyllis Brandish!”

  The other girls were laughing and joking as they walked along High Street. Betsy was silent and she and Tacy dropped behind the others.

  “What’s that,” she asked Tacy, “about plans ganging aft a-gley. Just where is a-gley? I’d like to know. It’s where my plans have gone to.”

  She was joking but she felt hurt inside. She had always thought that when Joe Willard got around to girls, he would start going with her.

  5

  The Party for Phyllis

  BETSY WAS PROUD BEFORE everyone in the world except Tacy. She could hardly wait to persuade Tib she didn’t care at all that Joe Willard had driven off with Phyllis Brandish.

  “Really,” she said, as soon as she and Tib had parted from the others, with plans to meet on the Sibley lawn after dinner. “Really, I’m rather relieved. I don’t believe I want to settle down to one boy in my junior year. I think it would be a mistake.”

  Tib accepted this readily, as she accepted all Betsy’s statements. She firmly believed that Betsy was the most wonderful creature in the world.

  “Perhaps I’d better not start going with one boy, either,” she answered anxiously. “What do you think, Betsy? Would it be a mistake for me, too?”

  Betsy pondered. “Lloyd Harrington would like to go with you, I’m sure. And he’s a great catch. I don’t know, Tib. It just depends on what you want to do.”

  “I want to do whatever you do,” Tib said. “If you don’t want to go with just one boy, neither do I.”

  Betsy was glad to have her own attitude established before Irma’s party for Phyllis, which took place on Friday afternoon. By Friday it was plain to the high school that Joe and Phyllis had a real case. She drove to school in her own auto as Phil did, in his. And every afternoon after classes she drove Joe down to the office of the Deep Valley Sun.

  For it developed that Joe was no longer working at the creamery. After his return from the harvest fields he had been hired by Mr. Root, Winona’s father, as a cub reporter and general handyman. Winona was bitter about it.

  “I’ve been talking Joe Willard up to Papa for years,” she said. “I told him Joe deserved something better than the job at the creamery. I told him Joe was the best writer in high school—excuse me, Betsy—and that he would make a swell reporter. And now he goes and gets himself a job on the paper and a girl, too.”

  “Take him away from her, Winona,” teased Carney. “You have a wonderful chance. You can go down to your father’s paper after school and hang around all you want to.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Alice. “Especially since Pin has graduated.” Pin had been Winona’s beau last year.

  “But there’s Squir
relly, you know,” said Winona, looking impish. “He kind of likes me, and I kind of like him.”

  Squirrelly was a senior with a headful of tight curls, high color and a deceptively bashful air. He was one of the stars of the football team. The supreme star was Al Larson, a brawny good-natured Dane who had been Carney’s chief escort since Larry Humphreys and his brother, Herbert, had moved away to California. The Humphreys had gone with the Crowd in Betsy’s freshman year. Larry and Carney had been really fond of each other. They still corresponded faithfully, a letter every week.

  The day of Irma’s party Betsy called for Carney. They joined Tacy and Tib at Lincoln Park and all walked together to Irma’s house. It was a very warm day. They wore light summer dresses, held parasols, and all of them, except Betsy, carried little silk sewing bags on their wrists.

  “Betsy,” scolded Carney, “you ought to learn to sew.”

  “I despise sewing. I’m going to buy my dresses in Paris.”

  “But you ought to know how to embroider at least. There’s so much sentiment in a gift you embroider. I embroidered Larry a laundry bag, and he was awfully pleased.”

  “Nobody would be glad to get anything I embroidered.”

  “I would,” said Carney. “I’d love a hand-embroidered gift from you, Betsy.”

  “If I embroidered you a jabot, would you wear it?”

  “Certainly I would.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Certainly it’s a promise.”

  “Girls, girls!” Betsy cried. “Be witnesses to this! If I embroider a jabot Carney promises to wear it. I’m going to call her bluff and embroider one.”

  “I’ll help you,” offered Tacy. “Me and my trusty needle.”

  “You’ll help me! There’s only one person in the world who would embroider a jabot worse than I would and that’s you. You only carry that sewing bag because it matches your dress.”

  Tacy tried to hit her with it, but the ensuing chase was brief. Betsy stopped and patted her hair.