She went into the house dejectedly. There was no one in the kitchen. The door which led to the dining room was closed.
“They’ve started supper without me. On my birthday!” Betsy thought. She felt like sitting down and crying.
She opened the dining room door and then stopped. No wonder she stopped! The room was crowded with children. They called, “Surprise! Surprise! Surprise on Betsy!”
Betsy’s father stood there with his arm around Betsy’s mother and both of them were smiling. Tacy and Tib rushed over to Betsy and began to pound her on the back, and Julia ran into the front parlor and started playing the piano. Everybody sang:
“Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear Betsy,
Happy birthday to you!”
“It’s a surprise party,” cried Margaret, red-faced from joyful suspense.
It was certainly a surprise.
There were ten little girls at the party because Betsy was ten years old. Ten little girls, that is, without Margaret who was too little to count. Betsy made one, and Julia made two, and Tacy made three, and Katie made four, and Tib made five, and a little girl named Alice who lived down on Pleasant Street made six, and Julia’s and Katie’s friend Dorothy who also lived down on Pleasant Street made seven, and three little girls from Betsy’s class in school made eight, nine, and ten.
There were ten candles on the birthday cake, but before they had the birthday cake they had sandwiches and cocoa: and along with the birthday cake they had ice cream; and after the birthday cake they played games in the front and back parlors. Betsy’s father played with them; Betsy’s mother played the piano for Going to Jerusalem; and when Betsy’s father was left without a chair how everybody laughed!
Betsy and Tacy and Tib played harder than anyone. They forgot to crook their fingers and to say “indeed” and “prefer.” They forgot to call one another Elizabeth and Anastacia and Thelma. In fact, after that day, they never did these things again.
But just the same, in the midst of the excitement, Betsy realized that she was practically grown-up.
Flushed and panting from Blind Man’s Buff, her braids loose, and her best hair ribbons untied, she found her mother.
“Mamma,” she said, “this is the first party I ever had at night.”
“That’s right,” her mother answered. “The children are staying until nine o’clock, and Papa is taking them home.”
“Is it because I’m ten years old?” asked Betsy.
“Of course it is,” her mother answered.
Betsy rushed to find Tacy and Tib. She drew them into a corner.
“You notice,” she whispered proudly, “that we’re having this party at night.”
“What about it?” asked Tib.
“What about it?” repeated Betsy. “Why, it’s a grown-up party.”
“It’s practically a ball,” said Tacy.
“Oh,” said Tib.
“Of course,” she pointed out after a moment, “tomorrow isn’t a school day.”
Tib always mentioned things like that. But Betsy and Tacy liked her just the same.
3
The King of Spain
HE FIRST THING Betsy and Tacy and Tib did after they were ten years old was to fall in love. They all fell in love at once … with the same person too.
It happened this way.
Betsy was eating her supper. She was hurrying in order to get out to play, for on May evenings all the children of Hill Street gathered in the street to play. They played Run-Sheep-Run and Prisoners’ Base and Pom-Pom-Pullaway and many other games, until the sun finally set behind Tacy’s house and the first stars appeared in the sky. Betsy loved this wild hour of play and she usually thought about it all through supper, but tonight her attention was caught by something her father was saying.
“Sixteen years old. It’s pretty young to be a king.”
“Has he had his birthday yet?” Betsy’s mother asked.
“Not yet. But they’re making great preparations. You see, he comes to the throne that day.” Mr. Ray folded the paper and handed it to his wife. “There’s his picture. Handsome boy, isn’t he?”
Julia and Betsy jumped up and looked over their mother’s shoulder. They saw the picture of a slim dark boy on horseback. The line beneath the picture read:
“Alphonso the Thirteenth.”
“Do you mean he’s living some place? Right now?” asked Betsy.
“Yes,” her mother answered. “He lives in Spain.”
“That country we had the war with,” said Julia. “It’s your turn to wipe the dishes, Betsy.”
“It is not,” said Betsy. “I wiped them last night.”
“But that was making up for the night before, when I did them for you, while you and Tacy practiced the ‘Cat Duet.”’
Betsy could not deny it.
“And tonight,” said Julia, “I have to practice my recitation.”
There was lots of practicing going on, for there was to be a big Entertainment on the Last Day of School.
“All right,” said Betsy. She didn’t mind staying in to wipe dishes as much as usual. It was a chance to ask her mother about the King of Spain.
She had known, of course, that there were kings and queens outside of fairy tales and histories. But she had never thought much about them before. It was strange to think now of a real live boy being a king.
She listened eagerly while her mother told her all she knew about him.
His father had died many years before; his mother, the Queen, had been acting as regent; but on May seventeenth he would be sixteen years old, and then he would ascend the throne and rule the country himself.
“Madrid … that’s the capital of Spain … is turned inside out with excitement,” Betsy’s mother said.
Betsy felt turned inside out with excitement too. After the towels had been hung to dry, she ran into the back parlor to find the newspaper. Fortunately her father had finished with it; he had gone to work in the garden. Clutching the paper, Betsy ran outdoors.
Games had begun but Tacy was not playing. She was sitting on the hitching block waiting for Betsy. The sun was low and the new leaves on the trees shimmered in a golden light.
“Tacy!” cried Betsy. “Did you know there was a king in Europe … alive and everything … only fifteen years old?”
“I’ve heard about him,” Tacy said.
“Here’s a picture of him,” said Betsy. She sat down beside Tacy on the hitching block and they looked at the picture together.
“Just think!” said Betsy. “We’re sitting here on the hitching block and at this very minute he’s somewhere, doing something.”
“Maybe he’s eating his supper,” Tacy said.
“Maybe he’s out horseback riding, like he was when this picture was taken.”
“Maybe he’s saying his prayers.”
“Maybe he’s blowing his nose.”
“It seems queer to have him blowing his nose,” said Tacy, looking displeased.
“Oh, probably he has an embroidered handkerchief,” said Betsy. “I imagine he does.”
They looked at the picture again.
“Tacy,” said Betsy. “Do you know what?”
“What?” asked Tacy.
“I’m in love with him,” said Betsy. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been in love.”
“Do you want to marry him?” asked Tacy.
“Yes,” said Betsy. “I do. Do you?”
“I certainly do,” Tacy said.
The games on the street were going full swing now, but neither Betsy nor Tacy cared about joining in. They sat looking at the King of Spain’s picture which was gilded by the sunset light.
Just then Tib ran up, breathless.
“My mamma …” she began.
“Tib,” said Betsy, interrupting. “Did you know there was a king in Europe, not sixteen years old yet?”
“Is there?” asked Tib.
“Here
’s his picture,” said Tacy. “Betsy and I are in love with him.”
“We want to marry him,” said Betsy. “We’ll be queen if we do.”
“Could you both be queen?” asked Tib, staring.
“No, just one of us,” said Betsy. “And it had better be Tacy because of her ringlets. She’d look nice in a crown.”
“Tib would make a nice queen,” said Tacy. Tacy was shy. She didn’t like the idea of being a queen very well.
“My mamma,” said Tib, “is making me a white accordion-pleated dress. For the Entertainment. To dance my Baby Dance in. I was hurrying to tell you.”
“A white accordion-pleated dress would be fine for a queen,” said Tacy. “Don’t you think Tib had better be queen, Betsy?”
“If she’s in love with him,” said Betsy.
Tib could see it was a kind of game.
“If you and Tacy are, I am,” she said. “Let’s play Pom-Pom-Pullaway now. They’re choosing sides.”
So they all played Pom-Pom-Pullaway until the golden light on Hill Street changed to soft gray and mothers began calling from the porches. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib didn’t talk any more that night about the King of Spain. But they talked about him every night for a long time afterward.
The newspapers were full of news of the young King Alphonso as his sixteenth birthday drew near. Every night when her father had finished with the paper, Betsy took it outdoors. She and Tacy and Tib went up to that bench which stood at the end of Hill Street and there they pored over the printed columns together.
Madrid was a whirlpool of gaiety, they read. The city was planning a Battle of Flowers. The buildings were hung with tapestries and carpets and with red and yellow cloth.
“Red and yellow must be his colors,” Betsy remarked thoughtfully.
“We ought to wear them then, like badges,” Tacy said. “After all, we’re in love with him. We’re expecting to marry him. At least, Tib is.”
“If we could find some red and yellow cloth, I would make us some badges,” Tib said.
Tib could sew.
Betsy and Tacy ran into their houses and rummaged in their mothers’ scrap bags. Betsy found some red cambric and Tacy found some yellow ribbon, and Tib took these materials home. The next evening she appeared wearing a red and yellow rosette, and when they had climbed the hill to their bench she pinned one on Betsy and one on Tacy. They felt very solemn.
“Now we’ve got a lodge,” said Betsy. “My father belongs to a lodge. It’s like a club only more important and very secret.”
“Well, this has certainly got to be a secret,” Tib said. “Julia and Katie would tease us plenty if they knew we were in love.”
“They wouldn’t understand being in love with a king,” said Betsy. “At least Julia wouldn’t. She likes just plain boys. Ordinary boys who walk home from school with her and carry her books, like Ben Williams.”
“Katie would think the whole thing was silly,” Tacy said.
“That just shows how little she knows about it,” said Betsy.
Tib acted embarrassed. She wasn’t so much in love as Betsy and Tacy were; she just liked to do whatever they did.
“What is the name of our lodge?” she asked, to change the subject.
“How would K.O.S. be? For King of Spain?” suggested Betsy.
They all thought that was fine.
After that, whenever anyone mentioned “Love” or “Marriage” in their presence, Betsy and Tacy and Tib said “K.O.S.” They sighed and rolled their eyes. They wore their red and yellow rosettes faithfully, changing them from one dress to another.
What is more, they wore pictures of the King of Spain, cut from the newspapers, pinned to their underwaists. Betsy had the one in which he sat on a horse. Tacy had one that showed him in hunting costume, with a shawl thrown over one shoulder, a wide hat, and a gun. In Tib’s picture he wore a white nautical-looking cap. Betsy and Tacy had a hard time concealing their pictures from Julia and Katie when they undressed at night. That made their secret all the more exciting.
They did not join in the games after dinner any more. Instead they walked up to their bench, and there in the cool spring twilight they read about King Alphonso. His birthday now was drawing very near. In fact, it would come next Saturday.
Peasants, the newspapers said, were flocking into Madrid, wearing the picturesque national costume. Great ladies draped in black lace mantillas sat on balconies.
“What are mantillas?” Tib wanted to know.
“They’re shawls,” answered Betsy, who had asked her mother.
“I think we ought to have some shawls then,” said Tib. “But the only shawl my mamma’s got is her old paisley shawl.”
“My mamma’s got that heavy brown one we play house with,” Betsy said.
“My mamma’s got a gray wool one,” Tacy said, “She’d let me wear it, I think. We all ought to wear them next Saturday, the day he’s crowned.”
Betsy and Tib thought so too.
So on Saturday, the seventeenth of May, they wore shawls all day long except at mealtime. It happened that the weather turned very warm that day. The little leaves on the trees seemed to grow bigger by the minute and dandelions on the fresh green lawn almost popped up while you watched them. All up and down Hill Street children put off caps and jackets. But Betsy and Tacy and Tib went around wrapped up in heavy shawls.
The lilacs had come into bloom by Betsy’s kitchen door. They picked a bouquet of fragrant purple clusters. Then they spread a blanket on the lawn and put the bouquet in the middle and they all sat down.
“Whatever are you wearing those shawls for?” asked Julia.
“And those rosettes?” asked Katie.
“K.O.S.,” answered Betsy and Tacy, rolling their eyes.
“K.O.S.,” answered Tib, trying not to laugh.
Julia and Katie went away.
“This is really a birthday party, isn’t it?” asked Tib.
“Yes, it is,” said Tacy. “And we ought to have a birthday cake.”
“I can’t very well ask my mamma for a birthday cake,” said Betsy. “But I can ask for cookies and we can pretend they’re cake.”
That was what they did; and while they munched cookies they tried to imagine what was happening in Spain where the young Alphonso was ascending his throne.
“The newspapers tomorrow will have it all in,” said Tacy from the depths of her shawl.
Tib put out a small perspiring face.
“But we ought to read them together,” she said. “On account of our lodge. And we’re never together on Sunday.”
That was true. They attended different churches, and on Sunday afternoon they often went riding or visiting with their parents.
“Well, let’s not look at the newspapers tomorrow,” Betsy proposed. “And when cur fathers have finished with them, let’s save them.”
“Then Monday, after school, let’s take a picnic up on the Big Hill,” suggested Tacy.
“Let’s go to that place we went to before, where we can see Little Syria. It’s the farthest from home of any place we know. There won’t be anybody around to disturb us and Betsy can read the papers out loud,” said Tib. “This mantilla’s hot,” she added.
“If you’re going to be Queen of Spain,” said Betsy, “you’ve got to get used to a mantilla. And so have Tacy and I, because we’ll be your ladies-in-waiting, I suppose.”
“Oh, of course,” said Tib.
It was difficult next day not to look at the Sunday newspapers strewn so invitingly about. But they did not even peek; and when evening came they managed to hide away all the crumpled sheets.
Monday after school, carrying a picnic basket and a fat bundle of papers, they climbed the Big Hill.
They turned right at the Ekstroms’ house, calling “hello” to their friend, Mrs. Ekstrom, who was weeding her garden. They went through the Secret Lane and past the Mystery House, down through a fold of the hills and up again. Then, leaving the thick-growing trees behind, they came out
on a high rocky ridge just as they had done before.
Tib took the ends of her skirt into her hands. Holding them wide, as she did when she danced her Baby Dance, she ran to the edge of the ridge. Betsy and Tacy followed, and the three of them looked down over their discovered valley.
The hillside was freshly green now. The gardens of the Syrians made dark brown patches behind their little houses. Behind Mr. Meecham’s Mansion an apple orchard made a patch of grayish pink. Everywhere wild plums, in dazzling white bloom, were perfuming the air.
“It’s just a perfect place,” said Betsy, “to read about his birthday.”
Tacy and Tib thought so too.
They tucked the picnic basket into a cleft of the rocks behind them. Usually they ate their lunch as soon as they reached the place to which they were going, but today they were too anxious to read about the King of Spain.
Tib perched on a high boulder. Tacy sat down in the flower-sprinkled grass with her knees drawn into her arms. Betsy unfolded the newspapers and spread them on her lap. She leaned against a wall of rock and read:
“‘Eight grooms on horseback led the procession. The King rode in the royal coach with his mother, the Queen, and his youngest sister, the Infanta Maria Teresa. He was pale but perfectly cool.’”
“I wish we could have seen him,” Tacy interrupted.
She gave a long, romantic sigh and looked at Tib. Taking the hint Tib sighed too.
“‘The King ascended the throne,’” read Betsy. “‘He bore himself with manliness. Smilingly he acknowledged the ovations of the crowd.”’
“What’s ‘ovations’?” asked Tib.
“It’s cheering and clapping.”
“We’d have clapped good and hard if we’d been there,” Tacy said. “It’s terrible that we weren’t there.”
Betsy read on: “‘He wore a dark blue uniform with gold facings, a steel helmet with a white plume, and a red silk waist-band from which hung a sword.’”
“He must have looked stylish,” Tacy said.
“Isn’t there a picture?” Tib asked.