The toy shop was what they had all been waiting for. They had been holding it off in order to have it still ahead of them. But the time for it had come at last.
At the toy shop it was difficult to choose. In blissful indecision they circled the table of dolls. Yellow-haired dolls with blue dresses, black-haired dolls with pink dresses, baby dolls, boy dolls, black dolls.
Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona had stopped playing with dolls, except on days when they were sick, perhaps, or when stormy weather kept them indoors. Yet choosing dolls was the most fun of all. They liked the dolls’ appurtenances too.
They inspected doll dishes, doll stoves, sets of shiny doll tinware, doll parlor sets.
There was one magnificent doll house, complete even to the kitchen. Winona asked the price of it.
“Twenty-five dollars? Hmm! Well, it’s worth it,” said Winona thoughtfully, swinging her pocket book.
When they were through with the dolls they began on the other toys. Trains of cars, jumping jacks, woolly animals on wheels.
“Gee!” said Winona at last. “I’m getting tired. When do we spend our dimes?”
“Dimes!” said the clerk who had told her the price of the doll’s house. “Dimes!” She settled her eye glasses on the thin ridge of her nose and looked at the four severely.
When she had turned away, Betsy whispered, “Right now!”
“I hope,” said Winona, “we spend them for something to eat.”
“We don’t. But after we’ve spent them, we go to call on our fathers. And you can’t call on four fathers, without being invited out to Heinz’s Restaurant for ice cream.”
“I suppose not,” Winona agreed. “Well, what do we buy then?”
Betsy turned and led the way to the far end of the store.
There on a long table Christmas tree ornaments were set out for sale. There were boxes and boxes full of them, their colors mingling in bewildering iridescence. There were large fragile balls of vivid hues, there were gold and silver balls; there were tinsel angels, shining harps and trumpets, gleaming stars.
“Here,” said Betsy, “here we buy.”
She looked at Winona, bright-eyed, and Winona looked from her to the resplendent table.
“Nothing,” Tacy tried to explain, “is so much like Christmas as a Christmas-tree ornament.”
“You get a lot for ten cents,” said Tib.
They gave themselves then with abandon to the sweet delight of choosing. It was almost pain to choose. Each fragile bauble was gayer, more enchanting than the last. And now they were not only choosing, they were buying. What each one chose she would take home; she would see it on the Christmas tree; she would see it year after year, if she were lucky and it did not break.
They walked around and around the table, touching softly with mittened hands.
Betsy at last chose a large red ball. Tacy chose an angel. Tib chose a rosy Santa Claus. Winona chose a silver trumpet.
They yielded their dimes and the lady with the eye glasses wrapped up four packages. Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona went out into the street. The afternoon was drawing to a pallid close. Soon the street lamps would be lighted.
“Which father shall we call on first?” Winona asked.
“Mine is nearest Heinz’s Restaurant,” said Betsy.
They walked to Ray’s Shoe Store, smiling, holding Christmas in their hands.
11
Mrs. Poppy’s Party
O GO FROM Before Christmas to After Christmas was like climbing and descending a high glittering peak. Christmas, of course, sat at the top. The trip down was usually more abrupt and far less pleasurable than the long climb up, but not this year. For this year, the After Christmas held Mrs. Poppy’s party.
Before Christmas started with the shopping expedition. Or even earlier, with the school Christmas Entertainment. The carols, the pungent evergreens, made their first appearance there. The Sunday School Christmas Entertainment followed, with speaking pieces and presents.
After the shopping trip one climbed through mists of secrecy … at the Ray house, one did. There was whispering and giggling. Doors were slammed when one approached. Rena was working with crepe paper in her bedroom; Julia kept whisking her sewing bag out of sight. Everyone cautioned everyone else not to look here or look there.
“Betsy, don’t open the lowest sideboard drawer.”
“Don’t look in the right-hand upper drawer of my bureau.”
“Keep out of the downstairs closet!”
Betsy knew so many secrets that she was afraid to speak for fear one would pop out like the jack-in-the-box she had seen in the toy shop.
What if she should accidentally mention the silver cake basket her father was giving to her mother? Or the burned wood handkerchief box Julia was making for her father? Or, above all, Margaret’s talking doll? Everyone was waiting to see Margaret’s eyes when the doll said “mamma” on Christmas morning.
Margaret’s eyes were big in her little serious face. The long black lashes seemed not so much to shade them as to make them bigger and brighter. They were big and bright enough the night her father brought the tree home. It was a feathery hemlock and smelled deliciously when Betsy and Margaret visited it in the woodshed.
On Christmas Eve it was brought indoors. It was set up in a corner of the dining room and a star was fixed on its crest. Strings of popcorn and cranberries were woven through its branches that were hung with colored balls.
Betsy put on the red ball she had bought on this year’s Christmas shopping trip. She looked for the harp she had bought last year, and the angel from the year before. When all was ready, the candles were lighted. Bits of live flame danced all over the tree.
Betsy’s mother went to the piano then. They all sang together. Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem. It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. And Silent Night, most beloved of all.
“Let’s read about the Cratchits’ Christmas dinner,” Mr. Ray said. He always said it.
He crossed his legs and got out his pipe and Betsy went to the bookcase for Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Betsy read aloud about the Cratchits’ goose, and Tiny Tim. Margaret pretended to read … (she knew it by heart)… ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Julia read the story of Jesus’ birth out of the Book of Luke.
The stockings were hung around the hard-coal heater. Mr. and Mrs. Ray and Rena all hung stockings too. In some families, Betsy had heard, only children hung stockings. But it was not so in the Ray house. Mr. Ray complained loudly of the smallness of his sock.
The lamps were turned low and they scurried around in the dimness putting presents into one another’s stockings. One could not avoid seeing knobby bundles being stuffed into one’s own stocking.
“I don’t peek; do I?” asked Margaret, trotting about.
“I should say you don’t,” Mrs. Ray replied.
“I’d be ashamed to, wouldn’t I?” Margaret continued.
“You certainly would.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Mr. Ray and pretended to make a dash for his sock. Margaret caught him around the knees. Julia and Betsy pinioned his arms, while Rena screamed and laughed at once.
“Lord-a-mercy! Lord-a-mercy!”
“Stop it! Stop it!” cried Mrs. Ray, pulling them apart. “Bob, you behave and go down cellar and get us some cider. These children must get to bed sometime tonight. We have to give Santa Claus a chance.”
Santa Claus, of course!
After Julia and Betsy and Margaret went upstairs, when the lamp had been blown out, they looked out the window. They saw the snowy roof of Tacy’s house, the snowy silent hill, the waiting stars.
“No Santa Claus yet,” they said.
But after they got into bed they began to hear him.
“Margaret! Don’t you hear something on the roof?”
“I think it’s reindeer. Don’t you, Betsy?”
“It can’t be yet. Papa and Mamma haven’t gone to bed.”
“Julia, he’s so fat and our chimney’s so small, how can he g
et down?”
“He gets down. It’s magic.”
“What would he do…” Margaret breathed hard with daring, “if we ran downstairs and caught him?”
“Better not do that. He’d never come again.”
“I won’t.” Margaret shivered in delighted apprehension. For the dozenth time she snuggled down in bed.
Mrs. Ray called upstairs.
“Children! Stop talking!”
“Children! Get some sleep! Remember tomorrow’s Christmas.”
Remember tomorrow’s Christmas! As though they could forget it!
Margaret waked up first. It was the first year she had waked ahead of Betsy. In her little high-necked, long-sleeved flannel night gown, she pattered through Rena’s bedroom, downstairs.
“Margaret! Go back to bed! It’s only four.”
On the second trip Betsy went with her. On the third trip Julia went too. It was still as black as night, but now the three of them jumped into the big bed with their mother.
They cuddled there, laughing and giggling, while their father in his dressing gown shook down and filled the hard-coal heater.
“My! My! You ought to see what I see!” he called out over the sound of rattling coal.
“Has Santa Claus come?” Margaret’s fingers were clutching Betsy’s arm.
“Sure, he’s come.”
“Can we get up? When can we get up?”
“Not until the room gets warm.”
Betsy’s mother got up though. Rena was up already. The smell of coffee and sausages was drifting through the house. Julia got dressed. But Betsy and Margaret stayed in bed imagining things.
They did not imagine the glory of that moment when they opened the bedroom door and saw the stockings, around the glowing stove, swimming in Christmas-tree light!
Margaret stared at the yellow-haired doll peeping from her stocking. She walked toward it slowly.
“Take it out, Margaret,” called her mother, while the others waited breathlessly.
She took it out.
“Squeeze it, Margaret.”
She squeezed it, looking down with a grave face.
“Harder!”
She squeezed it harder, and the yellow-haired doll spoke.
“Mamma! Mamma!” said the doll in a light quick voice.
“Mamma! Mamma!” cried Margaret, her eyes like Christmas stars.
That was the sparkling summit of Christmas at the Ray house.
The descent was gay. Stockings were unpacked down to the orange and the dollar from Grandpa Ray that were always found at the bottom. There were presents for everyone, beautiful presents, and joke presents too.
Julia got a postage stamp (for a letter to Jerry) tastefully wrapped in a hat box. Margaret got one butternut with a card signed “Squirrel, Esquire.” Betsy got one of her own much-chewed pencils “With Sympathy from William Shakespeare.” Mr. Ray got a pan of burned biscuits. Rena had been saving them ever since she burned them almost a week before.
Mr. Ray’s antics with those biscuits made Rena laugh until she cried. He acted as though he did not know they were a joke; he acted as though he thought he was expected to eat them. He chewed and chewed, looking solemn and worried, while the others rocked with mirth.
“Lord-a-mercy, I’ve got to get that turkey on!” said Rena at last.
“And my pies!” cried Mrs. Ray jumping up lightly to kiss Mr. Ray for the silver cake basket.
Everyone kissed everyone else, saying “Thank You.” And Betsy dressed and ran over to show Tacy Little Men. (Mr. Cook must have told her father she wanted it.)
The Kelly house was a happy bedlam. Betsy stayed there until the family went to church. Then she went on to Tib’s to feast on Christmas cookies, cut in the shapes of stars and animals and frosted with colored sugar.
Dinner came at one o’clock sharp. Full of turkey and turkey dressing, gravy and cranberry sauce, mashed turnips, creamed onions, celery, rolls, and mince and pumpkin pie, people either took naps or went sliding. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib went sliding. So did Margaret and all the younger children.
Everyone out on the hill had something new. A new sled, or a new cap, or new red knitted mittens. They slid and slid until purple shadows fell across the snow. Betsy came in at last to read beside the fire. Turkey sandwiches, made by her father, ended the day.
Usually she went to bed on Christmas night feeling very much on the other side of the glorious holiday peak. But not this year. She was almost as excited as though it were Christmas Eve, for the next day came Mrs. Poppy’s party.
The note of invitation had arrived several days before. It was written in a large childish handwriting on rich blue paper, heavily scented with new-mown hay perfume.
“Of course you may go. It’s very nice of her.” But Mrs. Ray’s voice still held that note of reservation. Why was it? Betsy wondered. Mrs. Poppy wasn’t any different from anybody else except that she was nicer than most.
“I wish,” said Betsy slowly, “you were acquainted with Mrs. Poppy. I think she’d like to get acquainted with you.”
“P’shaw!” said Mrs. Ray. “She isn’t interested in anything here. She’s in the Twin Cities, half the time. We haven’t anything in common. If I thought she was lonesome, I’d go to see her, of course.” Her tone added, “I’m sure she isn’t though.”
Julia broke into the conversation. She had just come in from skating with Jerry, at home for the Christmas vacation.
“I’m longing to meet her. Jerry says she was a very fine singer. She sang in Erminie. That lullaby you used to sing to us.”
“Oh, really?” Mrs. Ray seemed interested in this. But when Betsy pressed her, asking, “Will you go to see her, Mamma?” she answered, “Maybe. Sometime,” in that tone which meant “Probably not.”
Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Muller, and Mrs. Root seemed to feel much as Mrs. Ray did. But fortunately Tacy and Tib and Winona were allowed to go to the party.
They were trig and trim down to their polished shoes when they pushed through the swinging door at the Melborn Hotel. They wore their best hats and big vivid hair ribbons; best dresses too, under their winter coats.
Betsy took the lead. It was hard to take the lead from Winona but she did it because she had visited Mrs. Poppy before.
“This is the Winged Victory,” she said, pausing by the statue on the landing.
“The one Flossie looked like?” Tib asked, staring up.
“Yes. Only Flossie didn’t have wings.”
“Who was Flossie?”
“She’s in a story I wrote,” Betsy answered quickly. They hadn’t told Winona about the pink stationery. They were afraid she would tease them if the hundred dollars didn’t come. And it still hadn’t come. They had stopped making plans about it.
Mrs. Poppy opened the door to them, smiling radiantly. She looked like a big peony in a peony-pink silk dress. She wore a sprig of holly pinned to her shoulder.
“Merry Christmas!” she cried.
“Merry Christmas!” cried Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona. They surged into the hall.
They took off their wraps in the blue bedroom and Betsy shot a look at Minnie’s doll. It looked faded and old in the little rocking chair beside Mrs. Poppy’s bed. She wondered whether Minnie had been given that doll for a Christmas present and how long ago. She wondered whether Mr. and Mrs. Poppy had grown used to not having Minnie around on Christmas morning.
Suddenly she wished urgently that she had brought Mrs. Poppy a present. Why hadn’t she thought of it? Why hadn’t her mother, usually quick with such ideas, had this one? Or Mrs. Muller … she might have sent some Christmas cookies. She was always sending people boxes of her cookies. But no one had sent anything.
“We’ve got to do something about Mrs. Poppy,” Betsy thought so vigorously that she found herself frowning into the mirror. She made herself smile, and presently she felt like smiling.
Mr. Poppy’s den had a sprig of mistletoe over the door.
“I put it there,” said Mrs. Popp
y, looking roguish.
In the parlor there were wreaths at the windows. A fat glittering tree stood on a table.
“There are packages for all of you. They have your names on,” Mrs. Poppy said.
Her eyes brimmed with pleasure as they jostled one another, hunting for their gifts.
They all received perfume. Rose and lilac and violet and new-mown hay.
“You may exchange with one another,” Mrs. Poppy said. “I knew you wanted those four scents, but I didn’t know which wanted which.”
“But how did you know we wanted perfume at all?” they cried, exchanging.
“The man at the drug store told me. I told him whom I was buying it for and he seemed to know all about you.”
“He does! He does!” They went off into gales of laughter.
“It’s the first perfume I ever had, Mrs. Poppy,” Tacy said.
“Me too,” said Tib, sniffing her beloved rose.
“I’ve had perfume, but never lilac,” said Winona.
“Now I’ll smell just like you,” Betsy said.
Rapturously they doused themselves and each other.
They played the graphophone; and Mrs. Poppy played the piano for them to sing. The first thing they knew they were giving a sort of entertainment. Betsy and Tacy sang their Cat Duet; it was a duet they often sang at school. Winona sang a very sad song about The Baggage Car Ahead. And Tib danced her Baby Dance.
She had danced her Baby Dance many times since she danced it first at a school entertainment. Betsy and Tacy knew the music so well they could sing it. They sang it now, for Tib to dance by in Mrs. Poppy’s parlor.
Tib loved to dance, and Tib was like Julia … she loved to perform. Smilingly, she lifted her skirts by the edges, ran and made her pirouette. There were five different steps in the Baby Dance, each one to be done thirty-two times. She did them all triumphantly, and when her audience applauded at the end, she ran back to the center of the room to curtsey and kiss her hands, as she had seen Little Eva do.
Mrs. Poppy was enchanted with the Baby Dance.
“Thank you so much for doing it,” she said, ruffling Tib’s yellow curls.