Betsy-Tacy and Tib

  “No,” said Betsy. “But we could cut off the hair. We could get that much done right away. I’ll run down and ask my mamma for some scissors.”

  “And we’ll try to think what we can use for lockets,” Tacy said.

  Betsy jumped up and ran down the hill to her house. Her mother was in the kitchen making a cake, and she was pretty busy. She was beating eggs as fast as she could.

  “How’s Tacy?” she called out over the noise of the egg beater. “Is she glad to be out?”

  “Yes,” said Betsy. “And we need some scissors for something we’re doing. May I take the scissors, please?”

  “Yes,” said her mother. “You may take the blunt pair I let you cut paper dolls with. Hold the points down, and don’t run.”

  And she finished beating her eggs and began sifting flour. Betsy took the scissors and went out the kitchen door.

  Tacy and Tib called out as she came near.

  “We’ve been thinking,” Tacy said, “what we could use for lockets. We won’t be able to afford lockets for a while. But do you know what we could use?”

  “Pill boxes,” said Tib without waiting for Betsy to answer. “They’re just the right shape.”

  “While I was sick,” said Tacy, “our house was full of pill boxes, but my mother burned them all up yesterday.”

  “We have a few pill boxes at our house,” Betsy said. “Maybe some of them are empty.”

  “And Mrs. Benson would have some pill boxes, I imagine,” Tacy said. “Tib and I will go and ask her while you ask your mother.”

  Tacy and Tib ran down the street to Mrs. Benson’s and Betsy ran into the house to her mother again. Her mother had finished sifting flour now. She was beating the cake hard.

  “Mamma,” said Betsy. “Have you any old empty pill boxes Tacy and Tib and I could have?”

  “What do you want pill boxes for?” her mother asked, sounding surprised.

  “To make lockets of,” said Betsy. “We’re going to punch holes and run strings through and hang them around our necks.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Ray. “Well, I think I’ve got a pill box somewhere. Just wait a minute, and I’ll see.” And she scraped the cake into the pan and popped the pan into the oven and went into the bedroom. Before Betsy had finished cleaning out the bowl and Margaret had finished licking the spoon, she was back with one pill box.

  “That’s all I could find,” she said. “There’s some string on the clock shelf.”

  Betsy took the pill box and the ball of string and ran back to the ridge. Tacy and Tib had just come back from Mrs. Benson’s, and they had two pill boxes, beautiful ones.

  “We told her we were going to make lockets,” Tacy said. “She thought it was a fine idea.”

  So they took the scissors and punched holes in the pill boxes, and they ran string through them and tied them around each other’s necks. They made lovely lockets.

  “Now,” said Betsy, “it’s time to cut off the hair.”

  And she picked up the scissors.

  “Who’ll cut it?” asked Tacy. “I think we should take turns, because cutting hair will be fun.”

  “That’s right,” said Betsy. “Well, I’ll cut yours, and you can cut Tib’s, and Tib can cut mine.”

  She walked around Tacy looking at her hair and trying to decide where to begin. Tacy’s hair, as usual, was dressed in ringlets. There were ten long red ringlets, as neat as sausages.

  “I’ll begin on this one,” said Betsy, and she lifted up a ringlet right next to Tacy’s face. She cut it off close to the head.

  The shimmering long red ringlet looked beautiful on the grass.

  “I think I’ll cut off another one,” Betsy said. And she did.

  “It makes her look funny,” Tib said, staring at Tacy.

  “That’s right,” said Betsy. “I’d better cut off exactly half. Then it will look neater.”

  So she cut off three more ringlets, one after another. Exactly half were gone. And one side of Tacy’s head had five short stubs of curls while the other side had five long ringlets.

  “Well, that’s done,” said Betsy, and she handed the scissors to Tacy.

  Tacy walked around Tib looking at her hair. The short yellow curls would not be so easy to cut.

  “They’re not so regular,” said Tacy. “But I’ll try to cut off exactly half.”

  She began at Tib’s left ear and cut off all the curls on the left side of her head. Shining yellow rings showered the ground.

  Then Tib took the scissors and walked around Betsy.

  “Betsy’s easy,” she said. “She’s got two braids, and I’ll cut off one.”

  She unbraided one braid and cut off the hair which had made it. Unbraided, Betsy’s hair looked crinkly; it was almost as curly as Tacy’s and Tib’s.

  They put all the hair they had cut in a row on the grass. Red ringlets, short yellow curls, crinkly brown hair. They divided it into three equal piles, and each one took a pile. But the piles were much too big to stuff into a pill box. The pill boxes wouldn’t hold a fraction of what they had cut. They filled them as full as they could, and they spread the rest of the hair on the wild rose bushes.

  “The birds can use that hair in their nests,” Tacy said. “I once saw a bird carrying hair.”

  They played around the rose bushes a while but the more they looked at each other, the funnier each one thought the other two looked. They began to be a little worried about going home.

  “Let’s go all together,” said Betsy. “Three can explain things better than one.”

  So they took hold of hands, very tightly, and went down the hill.

  They went to Betsy’s house first. And when Betsy’s mother saw them she shrieked. Grown-ups don’t often shriek, but that was what Betsy’s mother did.

  “Betsy!” she cried. “Tacy! Tib! Whatever have you done to yourselves!”

  “We’ve cut off our hair,” said Betsy.

  “But why? What for?” cried Betsy’s mother.

  “To remember each other by,” said Betsy.

  “That’s nonsense!” cried Betsy’s mother. And she put down her knife … she had been frosting the cake … but she didn’t offer a speck of the frosting to anybody. She took off her apron and lifted up Margaret, who was staring at Betsy with eyes like saucers. “You come along with me,” she said, and Mrs. Ray and Margaret and Betsy and Tacy and Tib went across the street to Mrs. Kelly’s.

  Mrs. Kelly was sweeping the walk. She saw them coming, and after she had looked at them hard she threw her apron over her head. When she took down the apron she was crying. She ran her hand over Tacy’s head and said, “Oh those beautiful long red ringlets! Those beautiful long red ringlets!” She felt bad.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kelly,” Mrs. Ray said. “I’m sure it was Betsy’s idea.”

  “We did it to remember each other by,” said Tacy.

  But nobody seemed to pay any attention.

  Julia and Katie had been playing hop scotch. They ran to see what was the matter.

  “Well, for goodness’ sake!” they cried. “For goodness’ sake!”

  Paul had been racing two carts down the terrace. He ran to see what was the matter too.

  Mrs. Kelly wiped her eyes and took off her apron.

  “I’ll go along with you to Mrs. Muller’s,” she said to Mrs. Ray.

  And Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Kelly and Julia and Katie and Paul and Margaret and Betsy and Tacy and Tib went down the street and through the vacant lot to Mrs. Muller’s.

  “I’m glad you’re all coming along,” said Tib.

  And it was a good thing that there were plenty of people on hand to explain to Mrs. Muller. For Mrs. Muller didn’t like it at all that half of Tib’s hair was cut off. Mrs. Muller was proud of Tib. She was proud of how pretty and dainty she was, and of how she could dance. She was proud of her yellow curls.

  At sight of those shorn yellow curls Mrs. Muller turned white. She stood up … she had been embroidering a dress for Tib under the oak tr
ee on the knoll.

  “Tib,” she said. “Go to your room. You are going to be punished.”

  “Mrs. Muller,” said Mrs. Ray, “I am so afraid this is one of Betsy’s ideas. Let’s talk it all over.”

  “Let’s find out what they did it for,” Mrs. Kelly said.

  “All right,” said Mrs. Muller.

  Betsy swallowed. She swallowed hard.

  “I thought,” she said, “that we ought to have some of each other’s hair to remember each other by.”

  “It’s because I was so sick,” said Tacy.

  “And I might get sick too,” said Tib, “and so might Betsy.”

  “So we cut off a little of each other’s hair to put in our lockets,” explained Betsy.

  And they showed their mothers their pill boxes full of brown and red and yellow hair.

  Mrs. Ray looked at the pill boxes and she began to laugh. She had been very angry, but she could get over being angry fast. Mr. Ray said it was on account of her hair, which was red like Tacy’s. Mrs. Kelly began to laugh too, although she was wiping her eyes again. And at last Mrs. Muller began to laugh. She called Freddie.

  “Freddie,” she said, “will you ask Matilda to bring me the scissors, please?”

  And Matilda brought the scissors, and Mrs. Muller cut off what was left of Tacy’s long red ringlets and of Tib’s short yellow curls and she cut off Betsy’s one remaining braid.

  “At least,” she said as she clipped, “it is summer time. And short hair will be cool. But just the same,” she said to Tib, “you are going to be punished.”

  “And so is Betsy,” said Mrs. Ray, “very severely too.”

  “And so is Tacy,” Mrs. Kelly added.

  But Mrs. Kelly hated to punish Tacy because she had had the diphtheria. She took Tacy’s long red ringlets and put them in a candy box and kept them in a bureau drawer.

  8

  Being Good

  IT WAS strange that Betsy and Tacy and Tib ever did things which grown-ups thought were naughty, for they tried so hard to be good. They were very religious. Betsy was a Baptist, and Tacy was a Catholic, and Tib was an Episcopalian.

  They loved to sit on Tacy’s back fence and talk about God.

  Tacy’s back fence was a very good place for such talk. There wasn’t a soul around to listen except the cow, and sometimes the horse, munching and stamping behind them. And above the crowding treetops there was a fine view of sky, the place where God lived.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib were talking about Him one morning. They were looking up at the great fleecy clouds sailing across the sky.

  “It will be fun living up there after we die,” Betsy said. “We’ll all be so beautiful … we’ll look like Aunt Dolly.”

  “Tib looks like her already,” Tacy said.

  “Not since I got my hair cut,” said Tib. “I’m not very pretty since I got my hair cut.”

  There was a pause.

  “Well, you’ll have long hair in Heaven,” Betsy said. “All of us will. We’ll all be beautiful. And we’ll sail around with palm leaves in our hands. They have good things to eat in Heaven, I imagine. They have ice cream and cake for breakfast even.”

  “I’d like that,” said Tib.

  “We have to be good though,” Tacy said, “or else we won’t go there.”

  “We’re pretty good already,” Betsy said. “We’re lots better than Julia and Katie. Getting up a Club and not inviting us!”

  “The stuck-up things!” Tacy said.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib all covered their mouths with their hands and stuck out their tongues three times. They had made an agreement to do this, in public or in private, whenever Julia’s and Katie’s Club was mentioned. Julia’s and Katie’s Club was called the B.H.M. Club. No one under ten years of age had been invited to join. The meetings were held on the Big Hill every Tuesday afternoon. And this was Tuesday morning.

  “I know what let’s do!” cried Betsy. “Let’s get up a Club ourselves.”

  “Let’s get up a Club about being good,” suggested Tacy.

  “That doesn’t sound like fun,” said Tib.

  “Well, we can’t think about fun all the time if we want to go to Heaven,” said Betsy.

  “That’s right,” said Tacy. “The saints didn’t have much fun; I’ll tell you that. They used to wear hair shirts.”

  “Did they?” asked Betsy. “What for?”

  “To punish themselves. To make themselves gooder. And if they did anything bad they put pebbles in their shoes.”

  “What else did they do?” Betsy asked.

  Tacy looked at her suspiciously.

  “You’re not thinking about doing things like that in our Club, are you, Betsy?” she asked.

  “Not exactly,” said Betsy. She sat thinking, her bare toes curled around a wooden bar of the fence.

  “My mamma wouldn’t let me wear any different kind of shirt,” said Tib. She sounded as though she didn’t like the Club.

  “Don’t worry,” said Betsy. “We wouldn’t know where to buy hair shirts, even. Besides, we haven’t got any money. What would be a good name for our Club, do you suppose?”

  They all thought hard.

  Betsy suggested The Christian Kindness Club. And they liked that name because it made such nice initials. Clubs were called by their initials, for their names were kept secret. T.C.K.C. sounded fine.

  “What shall we do in our Club?” asked Tib. She still sounded as though she didn’t like it. But Tib always did what Betsy and Tacy wanted to do. She was very pleasant to play with. “Will we have refreshments?” she asked, cheering up.

  “No,” said Betsy. “This is a pretty serious Club, this T.C.K.C.”

  “It’s about being good,” said Tacy.

  “And we’ll never get to be good if we don’t punish ourselves for being bad. A child could see that,” said Betsy. “So in our Club we’ll punish ourselves for being bad.”

  “But we haven’t been bad yet,” said Tib. “I wasn’t even intending to be bad.”

  “We were born bad,” said Tacy. “Everyone is. Go on, Betsy.”

  “The pebbles gave me the idea,” said Betsy. “We’ll take our marble bags and empty out the marbles and pin the bags inside our dresses.”

  Tib looked uncomfortable. “Doesn’t that remind you of those pill boxes?” she asked. “There isn’t any cutting off hair in this Club, is there, Betsy?”

  “Of course not,” said Betsy. “This is a Being Good Club. We’re going to put stones in those bags around our necks.”

  “Oh,” said Tib.

  “Every time we do anything bad,” continued Betsy, “we’ll put a stone in. If we’re very bad, we’ll have to put in two stones, or three. By tonight those bags will be bulging full, I imagine …”

  “I wouldn’t wonder,” said Tacy, her eyes sparkling.

  “I don’t see why,” said Tib. “I thought we were going to be good.”

  Just then the whistles blew for twelve o’clock. And Betsy and Tacy and Tib flew in three directions.

  “We’ll meet on my hitching block right after dinner. Bring your bags,” cried Betsy, as she flew.

  Betsy hurried through her dinner. Julia was hurrying too, for the B.H.M. Club, so she said, met that afternoon. When Julia said that, Betsy lifted her napkin and poked out her tongue three times.

  “Did you choke on something, Betsy?” her father asked.

  “No sir,” said Betsy. “Mamma, it’s Julia’s turn to wipe the dishes.”

  “Yes,” said her mother, “and you may look after Margaret for me until it’s time for her nap.”

  While Julia was wiping the dishes, Betsy hunted up her marbles bag. She emptied the marbles into a box, and pinned the bag inside her red plaid dress. It made a bump on her chest. Taking Margaret’s chubby hand, she ran out to the hitching block as fast as Margaret’s chubby legs would go.

  Tacy was already there, and Tib was in sight, wheeling Hobbie’s gocart up the hill.

  There was a bump on Tib
’s chest beneath her yellow dimity dress; and there was a bump on Tacy’s chest too beneath her striped blue and brown gingham. While they were admiring one another’s bumps Julia and Katie started up the hill, carrying lunch baskets, and a stick and a square flat package which they always took to their Club.

  Betsy made a face at them. It was a regular monkey face, the kind her mother had said she should not make for fear her face would freeze that way.

  “Oh dear!” she said. “Now I’ve been bad. I must put a stone in my bag.”

  And she found a pebble and put it into her bag.

  “I think I’d better put a stone in my bag too,” said Tacy. “Because when Katie told me she was going to her Club I called her stuck up.”

  So Tacy put a pebble in her bag.

  Tib ran to the foot of the hill and called loudly after Julia and Katie.

  “You’re stuck up! You’re stuck up!”

  And she put a pebble in her bag.

  Margaret and Hobbie began shouting too. “’tuck up! ’tuck up!” But they didn’t understand about the pebbles.

  Betsy’s mother came to the door of the little yellow cottage.

  “Betsy! Betsy! What are you playing?”

  “This is our Club, Mamma. We’ve got a Club too. This is our T.C.K.C. Club.”

  “What do you do in your Club?” asked Mrs. Ray.

  “Oh,” said Betsy. “We see how good we can be.”

  “Well, there’s certainly no harm in that,” said her mother. She went back into the house.

  But the Club didn’t work out exactly as they had expected. The little bags didn’t make them want to be good; it was too much fun putting in the stones.

  Tib climbed up on the rain barrel and drabbled the skirts of her yellow dimity dress … two stones.

  Tacy climbed the backyard maple and swung by her knees from a branch; her mother had said this was dangerous … one stone.

  Betsy ran into the kitchen and got cookies without asking … one stone.

  Margaret ran happily screaming in a circle. Hobbie bounced up and down in the gocart and yelled.

  “’tone! ’tone!” cried Margaret and Hobbie. For even Margaret and Hobbie knew now that stones were part of the game. But Betsy, Tacy and Tib didn’t give them any stones. They didn’t pay any attention to them.