“Neither would I,” said Tacy.
“Me either,” said Betsy.
“We’re getting a little old for this sort of thing,” said Tib, looking severe.
22
The Junior-Senior Banquet
THE JUNIOR-SENIOR BANQUET was drawing near now and Betsy, Tacy and Tib—herbariums and exams disposed of—were working hard on the decorating committee.
It usually met at the Ray house.
“You can just as well meet here. It’s so convenient to school,” Betsy had said, and now, as a matter of course, Hazel Smith came in with Tacy and Tib almost every day.
Tib was only an ex-officio member of the committee, but her small artistic fingers made her invaluable.
“My right-hand woman!” Hazel declared.
The four went downtown to buy favors for the fish pond, tissue paper, cardboard for signs. They returned to the Rays’ to make fudge or poach eggs, according to their moods and appetites.
Cab and Dennie declared themselves ex-officio members also. Cab covered himself with glory with a NO FLIRTING ALLOWED sign for Lovers’ Lane. Margaret wrapped packages happily for the fish pond. One night Hazel, Tacy and Tib stayed all night, spreading from Betsy’s into Julia’s room, frantically talking Junior-Senior Banquet. It was almost, but not quite, like making herbariums.
Even in the midst of this excitement, Betsy could not forget about Tony. There was a sore place in her heart because of him. He wasn’t in school. He had not come to the Rays’ for several weeks, and the night before the banquet she telephoned him.
“Can’t you come to lunch Sunday night?”
“Sorry. I’ve got a date.”
“What do you mean, having a date on Sunday night? Papa’s feelings are hurt.”
“I’ll bet,” Tony replied. There was a brief silence. Then he said, “Maybe your father wouldn’t even want me to come? Has he heard about the mess I’m in?”
“My father,” Betsy replied, “says you’re the only boy who comes to the house who really appreciates his sandwiches. He’s clamoring for you, Tony.”
“Really?” Tony sounded pleased.
“You show up!” Betsy said. “That’s an order. And by the way”—she tried hard to be casual—“don’t you want me to save a dance for you at the banquet?”
“I’m not going,” Tony said.
“Tony Markham! Not coming to your own Junior-Senior Banquet? You must be crazy.”
“You know I’ve been suspended.”
“Suspended isn’t expelled. You’ll probably be suspended more than once before you graduate. How many dances shall I save?”
“Do you dance with a barb?”
“Evidently,” said Betsy, “you haven’t been keeping up with school affairs. There aren’t any Greek letter organizations at Deep Valley High any more. They’re ended. They’re kaput.”
There was another silence, longer this time.
“Is that straight?” Tony asked.
“Of course it is. We all got tired of the things, and besides Miss Bangeter called us down. You aren’t the only one who gets called down, you know. We were fools ever to start them, Tony. They lost us all the good committee appointments this spring. They lost me the chance to try out for the Essay Contest. You were the only one in the Crowd with any sense, when you turned thumbs down.”
Tony replied quickly this time. His big deep laugh rolled out over the ’phone.
“Sure you can save me some dances,” he said. “Two of them. Both waltzes, please. Say, Betsy! You haven’t forgotten how to waltz?”
“You’ll see,” Betsy replied.
Junior-Senior Banquet day dawned hot. It was, by some freak of Minnesota weather, ninety in the shade, but the juniors were too conscious of their responsibilities even to know that it was hot. Wearing their oldest clothes, sleeves rolled up for action, they moved into the high school in a body.
Down in the Domestic Science room aprons were being donned, ovens were being lighted, egg beaters were whirling.
Stan, in overalls, went about chanting his speech, the “Farewell to the Seniors” he had to deliver that night.
Lloyd had brought his auto, and he and Tib and Hazel drove to the woods for boughs of blooming trees. Betsy and Tacy, putting up signs, pounded until their fingers were blue. They dragged settees, pushed tables, ran upstairs and down.
Rain began, and the palms which were to make Lovers’ Lane had not arrived. Hazel stared at Betsy and Tacy in misery, and Dave, who was making the fish pond—pants rolled up and hair on end—offered to go out and chop down some trees. But the palms came after all.
And so at last did six o’clock. Tantalizing odors were rising from the Domestic Science room. It was time to go home and dress.
The decorating committee paused for a final proud look. The park was a bower of flowery green. A swing rocked in one shady corner. Lovers’ Lane led cool and inviting up the stairs.
Betsy put her arm around Hazel. “It looks beautiful,” she said.
“It was a wonderful idea of yours, Betsy.”
“You were the big executive who carried it out.”
Stan joined them and Betsy lifted a dirty but radiant face.
“It’s going to make history, Stan. The banquet given by the class of 1910 will never be forgotten.”
“You’ve worked hard,” said Stan. “All your Crowd has.”
Betsy knew that this was an apology.
“Save a dance for me,” he said.
“I will,” she promised.
At home she bathed and dressed hurriedly. Her mother asked whether Dave had, by any chance, signified his intention of calling for her and Betsy said he hadn’t.
“I think he will though,” she added.
Strangely enough, she didn’t care very much. It would not seem tragic if she went to the banquet alone or with a bunch of girls. She was thinking about the park. How Carney and the other seniors would rave about it!
“We did a grand job!” she exclaimed to her family.
Dave appeared at eight o’clock, immaculate, every hair in place.
“You look a little different than you did an hour ago,” said Betsy, smiling.
Appraising Betsy in the old rose dress he actually answered.
“So do you,” he said.
The tables in the Domestic Science room gleamed with borrowed linen and silver. Irma, Alice and Winona, in ruffled aprons, served. The program committee, headed by Joe Willard, had provided little booklets which he had had printed at the Deep Valley Sun. They included the menu, the list of speeches, and the dance program.
Thanks to Joe, perhaps, the menu had a highly intellectual flavor.
“Now good digestion wait on appetite and
health on both.”—SHAKESPEARE
Fruit Cocktail
“Can one desire too much of a good thing?”—CERVANTES
Roast Lamb and Mashed Potatoes
Mint Jelly
Peas in Timbale Cases
Olives
Rolls
Nuts
“My appetite comes to me while eating.”—MONTAIGNE
Tomato and Asparagus Salad
Cheese and Crackers
“Then farewell heat and welcome frost.”—SHAKESPEARE
Ice Cream
Cakes
Coffee
Candy
After the dinner there were toasts. Miss Bangeter spoke on “The Event,” and told of past Junior-Senior Banquets. Stan, transformed as Dave was and completely poised, toasted the seniors. He did better, the juniors thought, than the senior girl who returned the toast.
The company repaired to the park to swing and fish in the pond and flirt along Lovers’ Lane. Programs for the dance were filled out—Betsy’s was completed in no time—and Mamie Dodd began to play the piano in the upper hall, which had been kept clear for dancing.
Betsy came out of the girls’ cloak room to which she had repaired to freshen her hair and put powder on her face. She was very happy.
She knew she would be tired tomorrow, but the park had been worth it. It had been a glorious success.
Besides, Tony had come and claimed his two waltzes. He had not come for the dinner and she had been worried, but he had arrived for the dancing, looking exceptionally well pressed and well groomed. Miss Bangeter had crossed the room to speak to him.
Waiting for Dave, who had taken the first dance, Betsy saw Joe Willard break away from a group across the room and come toward her. He had never asked her for a dance. In fact, she didn’t think he had ever danced with any girl in school except Phyllis. He and Phyllis had always dropped into high school parties too late to fill out programs. As a result they had always danced just with each other and had usually left early. Tonight they had been present when the programs were filled out. There was no reason, Betsy thought, why he should not have asked her for a dance. But he hadn’t.
However, he was coming toward her purposefully now.
He looked happy. All the juniors were happy tonight. His pompadour looked very high and light above his dark blue suit.
“May I have a dance, Miss Ray?”
“Why did you have to be so slow? My program is all full,” said Betsy and waited fearfully remembering how sensitive Joe had always been. But evidently he had lost that chip he used to carry on his shoulder. Going with Phyllis had made him…suave, she thought.
“That was dumb of Willard!” he answered cheerfully.
This was reassuring but nevertheless Betsy was determined not to let him go.
In her freshman year he had asked to walk home with her from a party and she had had to turn him down. After a long time he had asked to walk home with her from the library one evening. Again she had had to turn him down.
“This would be three times and out,” she thought. “I have to break this jinx.”
She smiled. “I’m going to give you a dance,” she said. “Some of these people who took two can just give one up.”
“Good!” said Joe. “That’s the spirit I like to see. Who shall we steal from?” He took her program and studied it. “Markham has the best disposition.”
“But I like him the best!” protested Betsy. “Tony is a great favorite of mine.”
“Who shall it be then?”
“Lloyd. He only took two because Tib was mad at him, and I think she’s relenting. When he comes to get me we’ll just say there’s been a mix-up.”
“Mix-up Willard,” said Joe, writing down his name. The stolen dance was the eleventh one, the next to the last. His program, except for the eleventh dance, bore only a sprawling perpendicular “Phyllis.”
Carney had just come out of the girls’ cloak room.
“Did I hear you scratch a dance for Joe Willard?” she asked. “Do you remember telling me that he didn’t mean anything to you but the Essay Contest?”
Betsy flushed and smiled.
“What’s up?” asked Winona, joining them.
“Joe Willard just asked Betsy for a dance.”
“Really? Phyllis won’t like this!” Winona took a look at Betsy’s program. “Bet a nickel she’ll make him go home before we reach number eleven.”
The evening sped along from waltz to two-step, from schottische to barn dance.
“I must admit you can still waltz. It’s all because I took you in hand when you were young,” said Tony.
Betsy had glanced at his program. He was dancing with Tacy, Irma, Carney. She felt with thankfulness that she had taken the first step toward rescuing Tony, although he was not yet out of danger.
At the end of the second waltz she said, “See you for Sunday night lunch?”
“I hope your father has plenty of onions in the house,” Tony replied.
His black eyes were teasing, but she knew that he would come.
“I hear,” Hazel remarked to Betsy, “that Joe Willard has asked you for a dance.”
“What’s this about Joe Willard asking you to dance?” Tacy inquired.
“Has Joe Willard really asked you for a dance?” questioned Tib.
“Heavens!” said Betsy. “News spreads fast around this high school.”
“I even heard that you scratched a dance to give him one,” said Tib.
“Maybe the Deep Valley Sun would like a story about it,” Betsy replied.
She realized presently that the great news must have reached Phyllis. Phyllis and Joe were standing at the cloak room door engaged in what was plainly an altercation. Betsy couldn’t hear what they were saying but from their expressions, the growing tenseness of the conversation, she felt she could interpret it.
Phyllis had said that she wanted to go home; Joe had objected.
“Why, we always go home early,” Betsy could imagine Phyllis saying.
Joe would be casual. “Oh, let’s wait a little while!”
“I’d like to go now if you don’t mind.”
“Well, look, Phyllis. I have a date. And she scratched another fellow’s dance to give me one.”
“Really? Well, you may do as you like. I’m going home.”
Betsy didn’t hear this conversation but she must have imagined it with some degree of exactness, for Phyllis went into the cloak room and came out with her pale green opera cape, and Joe held it for her and they went down the stairs.
In five minutes the news had spread around the hall. Joe Willard had asked Betsy Ray for a dance. She had scratched off a name to give him one and then Phyllis wouldn’t let him stay for it.
“I’m afraid Phyllis is boss,” Carney whispered regretfully.
“I think he’ll come back,” Betsy said.
The tenth dance ended and there followed the brief intermission during which boys took leave of their old partners and sought new ones. Betsy waited for Joe. He did not come.
Mamie Dodd started to play the piano. It was a new song Betsy liked.
“The girl I’ll call my sweetheart,
Must look like you….”
Couples moved out to the floor, circled. Still Joe didn’t come.
Betsy stood alone. She would stand there only a moment. She knew the proper thing to do if you were stranded without a partner, although she had seldom found herself in that undesirable predicament. She started to move toward the cloak room but first her eyes circled the hall and she saw Joe almost running up the stairs.
His mouth smiled but his eyes were stormy and rebellious. He looked as though he had come from a battle. Betsy knew that he had taken Phyllis to her automobile but had refused to go home before the eleventh dance.
Betsy smiled. Joe put his arm around her and they moved out onto the dance floor. He danced well, not smoothly like Dave, nor with Tony’s rhythmic skill but with zest and in perfect time. He whirled her as she had never been whirled before.
She was glad to be whirled. It was a triumph to be dancing with Joe Willard. Yet it wasn’t just triumph which filled her.
“Does it mean anything?” she wondered. “For next year, of course.”
Joe would not, she felt sure, desert Phyllis now, even though they had had a disagreement. He was a fundamentally loyal person. He had been unwilling to humiliate Betsy by leaving her without a partner, and he would certainly not humiliate Phyllis, with whom he had had such a good time all year, by deserting her at the beginning of a gay Commencement week—when she was a senior, too. He would see her through.
But maybe, just the same, he didn’t care about her any more. Maybe he never had.
“I wonder, what about next year,” thought Betsy, whirling in Joe Willard’s arms.
23
Tar
“PERHAPS IT WASN’T such a good idea to rouse the Philos’ fighting spirit by putting up that pennant last fall,” Carney said.
A group of Zet girls sat together on the alcove bookcase in the high school auditorium. This was gay with Zetamathian blue and Philomathian orange. It was the evening assembly at which the Essay Cup would be awarded.
Always a great occasion, opening Commencement week, this year it held un
usual importance. The Philomathians had already won in debating and athletics. If they won the Essay Cup tonight they would have the almost unprecedented honor of holding all three cups.
Betsy found it exciting to be sitting with the others. In her freshman and sophomore years she had been a contestant, and so had sat in regal aloofness on the platform. Down in the teeming, turbulent, rumor-filled auditorium, suspense enveloped her and hemmed her in. It was terrible to think that the Philos might win tonight, but Betsy agreed with Carney that there was danger.
“Joe Willard,” she declared, “will win over Stan.”
She was a good prophet. The freshman points went to the Philos. The sophomore points went to the Philos. Then, before a screaming, cheering crowd, Joe Willard for the third year in succession was announced to have won his class points. He stood up to take the applause, his yellow hair shining, his face shining, too, with pleasure.
No matter where the senior points went, the Philos had won now, and they almost went mad with joy.
“Philo, Philo, Philo
Philomathian…. Wow!”
“Poor old Zet. Poor old Zet!”
And, of course;
“What’s the matter with Willard?
He’s all right.”
Betsy felt mixed emotions. As a Zetamathian she was crushed. This year, she felt sure, she could have been the deciding factor in winning the Essay Contest. The third orange bow, which Miss Bangeter was tying now, reproached and mocked her. On the other hand, liking Joe as she did, she couldn’t help rejoicing in his moment of splendid triumph.
The next morning report cards were given out. Tacy and Tib called for Betsy. They met Cab and Dennie on High Street, and just as she had done the previous fall, Tacy cried out suddenly, “What’s that crowd doing in front of the high school? Is it on fire?”
“Gosh!” said Cab. “It would be wasteful to have it burn down now when examinations are over.”
Something remarkable was going on, for the crowd pushed from the school lawn out into the street. Everyone was looking up at the roof, and Cab and Dennie began to run.
Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe Page 18