“Papa,” she said, “will you bring me some more tablets? Quite a lot of them, please.”
7
A Trip to the Library
ARLY IN NOVEMBER Betsy made her first expedition to the library.
It was a windy day. Gray clouds like battleships moved across a purplish sea of sky. It looked like snow, Mrs. Ray remarked as she and Julia stood on the front porch seeing Betsy off. She looked a little doubtfully at Betsy’s Sunday hat, a flowered brim that left her ears perilously exposed.
“Oughtn’t you to wear your hood, Betsy?”
“Mamma! Not when I’m going downtown to the new Carnegie Library!”
“You’d better put on leggins and overshoes though.”
“There isn’t a speck of snow on the ground.”
Mrs. Ray looked at the thick woolen stockings, the stout high shoes.
“All right. Just button your coat. But if it snows, walk over to the store and ride home with Papa.”
“I will,” Betsy promised.
She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.
Julia had loaned her a pocket book to hold her fifteen cents. It dangled elegantly from a chain over Betsy’s mittened hand. Betsy opened it and looked inside to see that her money was safe. She closed it again and took the chain firmly into her grasp.
“Good-by,” she said, kissing her mother and Julia.
“Good-by,” she waved to Rena, who was smiling through the window.
“Good-by,” she called to Margaret, who was playing on the hill as the small girls of Hill Street did on a Saturday morning. Betsy could remember well when she used to do it herself. (It was only last Saturday.)
Tacy ran across the street to walk to the corner with her. It was a little hard, parting from Tacy. They were so used to doing everything together.
“I wish you were coming too,” Betsy said.
“I’ll be all right. I’m going to play with Tib.”
“Some Saturday soon you’ll be coming.”
“Sure I will.”
In spite of her brave words Tacy sounded forlorn. She looked forlorn, bareheaded, the wind pulling her curls.
But at the corner she hugged Betsy’s arm. She looked into Betsy’s eyes with her deep blue eyes that were always so loving and kind.
“I want you to go,” she said. “Why, I’ve always known you were going to be a writer. I knew it ahead of everyone.”
Betsy felt all right about going then. She kissed Tacy and went off at a run.
The big elm in Lincoln Park, bare and austere, pointed the way downtown. She entered Broad Street, passing big houses cloaked in withered vines against November cold. She passed the corner where she usually turned off to go to her father’s store and kept briskly on until she reached the library.
This small white marble temple was glittering with newness. Betsy went up the immaculate steps, pulled open the shining door.
She entered a bit self-consciously, never having been in a library before. She saw an open space with a big cage in the center, a cage such as they had in the bank, with windows in it. Behind rose an orderly forest of bookcases, tall and dark, with aisles between.
Betsy advanced to the cage and the young lady sitting inside smiled at her. She had a cozy little face, with half a dozen tiny moles. Her eyes were black and dancing. Her hair was black too, curly and untidy.
“Are you looking for the Children’s Room?” she asked.
Betsy beamed in response.
“Well, not exactly. That is, I’d like to see it. But I may not want to read just in the Children’s Room.”
“You don’t think so?” asked the young lady, sounding surprised.
“No. You see,” explained Betsy, “I want to read the classics.”
“You do?”
“Yes. All of them. I hope I’m going to like them.”
The young lady looked at her with a bright intensity. She got down off her stool.
“I know a few you’ll like,” she said. “And they happen to be in the Children’s Room. Come on. I’ll show you.”
The Children’s Room was exactly right for children. The tables and chairs were low. Low bookshelves lined the walls, and tempting-looking books with plenty of illustrations were open on the tables. There was a big fireplace in the room, with a fire throwing up flames and making crackling noises. Above it was the painting of a rocky island with a temple on it, called The Isle of Delos.
“That’s one of the Greek islands,” said Miss Sparrow. Miss Sparrow was the young lady’s name; she had told Betsy so. “There’s nothing more classic than Greece,” she said. “Do you know Greek mythology? No? Then let’s begin on that.”
She went to the shelves and returned with a book.
“Tanglewood Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mythology. Classic,” she said.
She went back to the shelves and returned with an armful of books. She handed them to Betsy one by one.
“Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb. Classic. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. Classic. Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift. Classic. Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. Classic, going-to-be.”
She was laughing, and so was Betsy.
“You don’t need to read them all today,” Miss Sparrow said.
“May I get a card and take some home?”
“You may have a card, but you’ll have to get it signed before you draw out books. You may stay here and read though, as long as you like.”
“Thank you,” Betsy said.
Miss Sparrow went away.
Betsy took off her hat and coat. She was the only child in the room. Others came in shortly, but now she was all alone.
She seated herself in the chair nearest the fire, piled the books beside her and opened Tanglewood Tales. But she did not start to read at once. Before she began she smiled at the fire, she smiled at her books, she smiled broadly all around the room.
When the Big Mill whistle blew for twelve o’clock, she was surprised. She got up and put on her things.
“Did you have a good time?” Miss Sparrow asked, as Betsy passed the desk.
“Yes. I did.”
“Be sure to come again.”
“Oh,” said Betsy, “I’ll be back just as soon as I eat.”
“But I thought you lived way up on Hill Street?”
“I do. But I’m eating at Bierbauer’s Bakery. My father gave me fifteen cents. I’m going to eat there every time I come to the library,” Betsy explained. “It’s so I can take my time here, browse around among the books.”
Miss Sparrow regarded her with the brightly intent look that Betsy had observed before.
“What a beautiful plan!” Miss Sparrow said.
Eating at Bierbauer’s Bakery was almost as much fun as reading before the fire. It was warm in the bakery, and there was a delicious smell. Betsy bought a bologna sandwich, made of thick slices of freshly baked bread. She had a glass of milk too, and ice cream for dessert. But she decided that she wouldn’t always have ice cream for dessert. Sometimes she would have jelly roll. It looked so good inside the glass counter.
Betsy couldn’t help wondering if the other people in the bakery weren’t surprised to see a girl her age eating there all alone. Whenever anyone looked at her she smiled. She was smiling most of the time.
On the way back to the library she looked eagerly for snow. She hoped she would have to call for her father. She loved visiting the store, riding the movable ladders from which he took boxes from the highest shelves, helping herself to the advertising tablets, talking to customers. But there wasn’t a flake in the air. The battleships had changed to feather beds, hanging dark and low in the purplish sky.
Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.
She looked
up suddenly from The Miraculous Pitcher to see flakes coming past the window. They were coming thick and fast. She ran to look outdoors and saw that they had been coming for some time. Roofs and branches and the once brown lawns were already drenched in white.
“Now I’ve got to go to the store,” she thought with satisfaction. She hurried into her wraps, said good-by to Miss Sparrow.
“It’s too bad,” said Miss Sparrow, “to take that pretty hat out into the snow.”
“I haven’t far to go,” said Betsy. “I’m going to the store to ride home with my father. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“Good-by,” Miss Sparrow said.
Betsy’s shoes made black tracks on the sidewalk. But the snow covered them at once. Filmy flakes settled on her coat and mittens. Soon she was cloaked in white. The air was filled with flakes, coming ever thicker and faster. Betsy ran and slid and slid again. She longed for Tacy and Tib. It was the first snow of the winter and demanded company.
She was soon to have it.
At the Opera House she paused to stare up at the posters. She wondered if there were a matinee coming. Winona would take them if there were. Then she noticed Mr. Poppy’s horseless carriage, standing in front of the livery stable, blanketed in snow. She had not seen it since the day Tib took her ride, and she ran to inspect it.
A soft ball hit the back of her head. She whirled around. It was the worst thing she could have done. A snowball broke in her face.
She stooped blindly to mold a ball herself.
“All dressed up in her Sunday hat,” somebody yelled.
A volley hit her hat, knocking it off. Snow oozed down the collar of her coat.
Her assailants were boys she had never seen before. She was one to three or four, and never any good at snowballs. Besides, she was handicapped by holding Julia’s pocket book. She grabbed her hat and started to run.
She slipped on the soft snow. Swish! her feet went up!
Bang! she clattered down.
Yelling fiendishly, the boys ran away.
A little man came out of the livery stable and helped her to her feet. Behind him came a very large lady whose fur coat breathed a sweet perfume. Sunny Jim and Mrs. Poppy helped Betsy to her feet.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Mrs. Poppy.
“No ma’am. Not a bit.” Betsy winked back the tears of which she was ashamed.
“They were bad boys.”
“If I knew who they were,” said Betsy, shaking off snow, “I’d bring Tacy and Tib and come back. Tib would fix them. She can throw snowballs better than any boy.”
“Tib?” asked Mrs. Poppy. “My little friend Tib?”
“That’s right. We waved to you from the box at Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Tib and Tacy and Winona and me.”
“Of course. I know you. But I don’t know your name.”
“Betsy Ray.”
“Her pa runs Ray’s Shoe Store,” said Sunny Jim. “I know him well.”
“I’m on my way to the shoe store now,” said Betsy. “To ride home with my father.” She shook the snow from her hat and put it on her head, grasped Julia’s pocket book firmly. “Thank you for helping me,” she said.
Mrs. Poppy was looking down at Betsy’s feet.
“Speaking of shoes,” she said, “yours are very wet, and your stockings are sopping. Why don’t you come over to the hotel and dry out? I can telephone your father.”
“Why … why… I’d love to,” said Betsy.
“We’ll have some hot chocolate with whipped cream,” said Mrs. Poppy. She spoke fast and eagerly, like a child planning a party.
Her face alight, she turned to Sunny Jim.
“Just tell Mr. Poppy I won’t wait. Tell him I’ve gone on home. It’s just a step.”
“Yes, Mrs. Poppy,” said Sunny Jim respectfully.
Mrs. Poppy took Betsy’s hand. They started toward Front Street through waving curtains of snow. The visit to the Carnegie Library raced into Betsy’s past before a future which held hot chocolate at the Melborn Hotel.
8
Mrs. Poppy
HAT AN ADVENTURE to tell Tacy and Tib! thought Betsy, as she waited for Mrs. Poppy in the big lobby that smelled of cigars and of the fat red leather chairs.
Winona too would have to hear about it. Winona had been in the Melborn Hotel, of course. But Betsy doubted that she had ever had hot chocolate in Mrs. Poppy’s rooms; she doubted that Winona had ever come in as she had, hurrying gaily through the swinging door with Mrs. Poppy herself.
Mrs. Poppy was large and elegant in her black sealskin coat. Beneath the matching cap shone her yellow hair and the diamonds in her ears. Her face too shone with pleasure as she came back from the telephone behind the big desk.
“Your father says you may stay. I’m going to take you to the store at five o’clock. There’s time for a real party,” Mrs. Poppy exclaimed.
She held Betsy’s hand and looked around the lobby.
“Which would you rather do?” she asked. “Take the elevator, or walk up the stairs?”
Betsy hesitated. She had never ridden in an elevator. But she looked at the grand staircase rising at the end of the lobby. It was richly carpeted, and there was a statue on the landing.
“The stairs,” she said. “And the elevator coming down.”
They climbed slowly. The sealskin coat was soft and cold when Betsy brushed against it. It smelled sweetly of Mrs. Poppy, and her silken skirts swished in Betsy’s ears.
Betsy looked around often to get a view of the lobby which stretched impressively to the large plate glass windows, veiled now by snowflakes.
The statue on the landing had no head. It was the statue of a woman, or an angel…
“It’s called the Winged Victory. It’s Greek,” said Mrs. Poppy.
“Greek!” said Betsy. “It’s probably a goddess then.” She walked around it, staring. Her reading of the day illumined the triumphant figure.
At the top of the stairs stretched the hotel dining room. It was two stories high and overlooked the river. Here Deep Valley gave its fashionable parties, its dances and cotillions, with an orchestra playing behind potted palms and those guests who did not care to dance amusing themselves with whist and euchre in the luxurious parlors. Betsy had read all about it many times in the society columns of Winona’s father’s paper.
She looked about her eagerly as Mrs. Poppy paused to speak to a maid in a white cap.
“Will you send in some hot chocolate?” she asked. “Plenty of whipped cream, please, and a plate of cakes.”
“Yes, Mrs. Poppy,” answered the maid, smiling at Betsy.
Mrs. Poppy tripped down a corridor, carpeted so deeply that their footfalls could not be heard. At the end she paused, took a key out of her bag and opened a door. They were greeted by a burst of warmth and of Mrs. Poppy’s perfume.
“This is my little house,” she said, leading the way inside.
It was indeed like a little house, a doll’s house. (But Mrs. Poppy was a pretty big doll.) There were parlor, den, bedroom and bath; no dining room or kitchen.
“We eat in the big dining room, or else have our meals sent in here,” Mrs. Poppy explained.
They went first into the bedroom which was blue, blue, blue. Blue flowers climbed up the walls and blue flowers bloomed on the carpet. Blue draped the windows, the bed, the bureau and the chiffonier. The bathroom where Mrs. Poppy asked Betsy to take off her shoes and stockings was blue too.
Mrs. Poppy brought out a pair of bedroom slippers lined with white fur. Into these Betsy thrust her feet, while Mrs. Poppy took off her own wraps. Her dress was very modish with braid appliquéd on the blousy waist, the baggy sleeves, the trailing skirts. There was a fresh white bow at her neck.
Although she was so large, Mrs. Poppy looked young after her hat was removed. Her blonde hair was dressed in a high pompadour with a figure eight down her neck. Her skin was freshly pink, and her dark-lashed blue eyes brimmed with smiles.
Beside the bed was a small rocking c
hair with a doll in it.
“Was this your doll when you were a little girl?” Betsy asked.
“No,” said Mrs. Poppy. “That doll belonged to our little girl, our Minnie. She died, and that’s why I like to borrow other people’s little girls sometimes.”
“Oh,” said Betsy. She was sorry. She wished she knew how to say she was sorry; Julia would have known. But Mrs. Poppy seemed to understand. She took Betsy’s hand and squeezed it.
“Come on,” she said. “Let me show you my little house.”
They swished through leather portieres into the den. It was almost filled by a sofa piled with burned-leather pillows. The walls were crowded with Gibson Girls and Remington cowboys. There was a plate-rack full of beer steins, and on a table beside a capacious Morris chair was Mr. Poppy’s collection of pipes.
“When Mr. Poppy is in here, there isn’t room for me,” Mrs. Poppy said laughing.
They swished through bead portieres into the parlor. Pink ribbons tied back long lace curtains that fell to the mossily carpeted floor. More pink ribbons were woven through wicker chairs and tables. A full-length mirror, framed in gold, stood between the windows reflecting the pictures on the walls, the great horn of a graphophone and a piano covered with velvet drapery and loaded with photographs.
While Mrs. Poppy opened a table underneath one of the windows and spread it with a white embroidered cloth, Betsy sat on the piano stool and looked at the music. There were popular songs… Hiawatha, Bluebell; there were the books of musical comedies… The Prince of Pilsen, The Silver Slipper, The Belle of New York; there were albums of piano pieces and the same Czerny that Julia was forever practicing.
“Do you play the piano?” asked Mrs. Poppy as she put cups and saucers, hand painted with roses, out on the table.
“No. But my sister Julia does. She plays and sings and speaks pieces and everything. You ought to hear her speak ‘Editha’s Burglar,’” Betsy said. She often bragged about Julia when Julia wasn’t around.
“Have you any other brothers and sisters?”
“Yes. A little sister, Margaret. She has an English bob. She’s cute, and not so much trouble as she used to be. She goes to school now.”