Mr. and Mrs. Sibley leaned over the banisters, laughing.
“Leave enough ice cream for your brothers,” Mrs. Sibley said.
16
Hic, Haec, Hoc
BY THE TIME NOVEMBER was under way, homework reared its ugly head. At first Betsy had managed very well with study periods but the habit, now flourishing, of writing notes to Herbert had interfered considerably. A forty-six in an algebra test brought her up short.
And not only was her algebra teacher depressingly uncomplimentary. Her Latin teacher was plainly not impressed. Betsy and Tacy were delighted when they were introduced to “Hic, haec, hoc.” They took the declension for a slogan, and when Betsy called Tacy on the telephone she said “Hic, haec, hoc,” and Tacy answered, “Hujus, hujus, hujus,” and they shouted in unison, “Huic, huic, huic.” This was undeniably very bright, but its good effects were not apparent in the classroom.
Even her English teacher did not appreciate Betsy.
“He picks on me about commas,” she complained.
Joe Willard carried off first honors easily, and Betsy was a breathless second.
In Miss Clarke’s ancient history class alone did she find smooth sailing, but almost everyone sailed smoothly in gentle Miss Clarke’s class. From the beginning of the year to the end, Miss Clarke did not shuffle her cards.
The names of her pupils were written on cards stacked alphabetically. Miss Clarke sat down each morning with the neat pile before her, lifted a card, peered at it mildly through her eye-glasses, and asked the pupil named thereon a question. When the answer had been given, the card went to the bottom of the pile. The ancient-history textbook was so arranged that each paragraph formed a convenient subject for a question. Knowing exactly when his card would come up, a student had no difficulty in figuring out beforehand just which paragraph it was advisable to study. It was not considered sporting to study anything else.
One day in November Miss Clarke dropped her cards. They scattered widely in all directions and the consternation created in her class was quite out of proportion to the labor involved in picking them up.
“I won’t take time to sort them now,” said Miss Clarke, lifting the first one at hand. There were frantic mutterings among the seekers after knowledge. Books were furtively opened, pages ruffled. Almost everyone recited badly that day. Even star pupils like Betsy seemed completely in a fog.
“That little accident with my cards upset you children more than it did me,” said Miss Clarke sympathetically.
Betsy saw a good deal of Miss Clarke for she was the Zetamathian faculty advisor, and Betsy was from the first an active Zetamathian. This was more or less an accident.
The two societies alternated in presenting monthly programs; Rhetoricals, they were called. Julia, who loved to perform, had long been Miss Clarke’s mainstay. Seldom were there Zetamathian Rhetoricals at which Julia did not sing, recite or play the piano. Miss Clarke assumed that Betsy, being Julia’s sister, was equally talented, and asked her to take part in the first program.
“Now, what would you like to do?” she asked with flattering confidence after Betsy had accepted.
“Well,” said Betsy hesitantly, “Tacy and I might sing our Cat Duet.”
They had sung this first in the Fourth Grade, and in every grade thereafter. The costumes had been outgrown long since, but the duet had never been abandoned. It consisted mostly of cat yowls and howls and was popular with grade school audiences. A high school audience received it hilariously at the first Zetamathian Rhetoricals.
The weather was growing wintry. Early in November Betsy looked out her window one morning to find a thin layer of white over the world. The snow was wet, and melted promptly, but a week later it came again as though it meant business. Mr. Ray had started a fire in the furnace. The rooms of the High Street house were comfortably warm as the rooms on Hill Street never had been. Betsy felt a pang when she remembered the glowing windows of the coal stove but she could not help enjoying a heated bedroom. And, of course, on Hill Street there had been no fireplace.
“The fireplace is going to be fun during the holidays,” Mrs. Ray said.
“And Thanksgiving’s almost here,” answered Mr. Ray. “I’ve ordered a fifteen-pound turkey.”
The Slades came for Thanksgiving dinner, bringing Tom who was home on vacation, which made the occasion eventful for Betsy. He was not only that highly desirable creature, a boy, but he was an old friend. He and Betsy and Tacy had started school together.
He was large and rugged with dark hair that always looked rough no matter how carefully he brushed it, greenish-brown eyes under glasses, and a dark skin. Not even his uniform could make him handsome but he was an original and interesting boy. He was musical; he played the violin; well, too, Julia said. His violin joined Julia’s piano at all The Crowd parties.
Cox Military hadn’t changed him, except that he now said “Hully Gee!” all the time. The Crowd had never even heard, “Hully Gee!” before. But everyone started to say it. Deep Valley rang with “Hully Gees!” after Tom went back to school.
December came in. The snow was still white and fresh but it was growing ominously deep. When the walks were shoveled, after a snowfall, the drifts were as high as a man’s head. Betsy kept warm in a grey coat and a grey fur piece, and sometimes replaced her grey hat, which was topped by a red plaid bow, with a stocking cap or tam-o’-shanter, also red.
Clubs were in full swing; Mrs. Ray was frenziedly preparing a paper for her Study Club. The lodges were giving dances. Julia and Fred went with Mr. and Mrs. Ray to the Knights of Pythias dances sometimes. Starting off in their party dresses, Mrs. Ray and Julia looked like sisters.
The Opera House began to have its visitations of plays. The best one was a musical comedy called The District Leader, with a Joe Howard in it. Winona took the girls in The Crowd, and the following day she and Betsy and Tacy went up and down Front Street gathering up the advertising pictures of Joe Howard. They had cases on him, they said. Fred brought Julia the songs from the show, and The Crowd sang them around the piano.
“What’s the Use of Dreaming?” Tony sang that one better than Joe Howard, everyone agreed.
The Crowd stood with locked arms to sing and often Tony’s arm was locked in Betsy’s. “My Wild Irish Rose,” “Crocodile Isle,” “The Moon Has His Eyes on You,” “Dreaming.” The songs they sang came to hold in their melodies the very essence of what Betsy felt for Tony, the magical sweetness.
For a few days after the Halloween party she had felt distressingly self conscious with him. His teasing eyes seemed to be searching her face to see if what Winona had said was true. But this had worn off; it was bound to; he was at the Ray house so much.
Yet there was a difference now. It was small; he was far too brotherly still; but Betsy was almost sure she saw a difference. He asked her to go with him to some of The Crowd parties; he didn’t just go along. He paid for her when they went to the Majestic. He stayed later than the others did when The Crowd came to her house.
Going to and from classes in school he always hailed her. “Hi, Ray of Sunshine!” Sometimes he stopped to talk. Sometimes he wrote her a note, but only when he had something to tell her. He didn’t write notes just for fun as Herbert did. Betsy kept these careless scrawls in her handkerchief box under her handkerchiefs and the sachet bag.
Occasionally after school Betsy walked home with Tacy. She liked to visit the Kellys who all loved and petted her. She liked to call on the neighbors…the Riverses, Mrs. Benson, and the rest. It was satisfying to appear in the haunts of her childhood with the aura of high school about her. The hills were white now; she and Tacy couldn’t go up to their bench. Betsy’s old house was rented, and about the time she left Kellys, the lights would go on in the windows.
At this hour, often, the sky was the color of a dove’s breast. The snow which all day long had sparkled in the sunshine looked pale. Walking homeward, looking up at the sky, and around her at the wan landscape, she felt an inexplicable yearning. It
was mixed up with Tony, but it was more than Tony. It was growing up; it was leaving Hill Street and having someone else light a lamp in the beloved yellow cottage. She felt like crying, and yet there was nothing to cry about.
She made up poems as she tramped homeward, the snow squeaking under her feet. Sometimes when she reached home she wrote them down and put them with Tony’s notes deep in the handkerchief box. But she did this secretly.
“What has become of your writing, Betsy?” her mother asked. “Are you sure you don’t want Uncle Keith’s trunk down in your bedroom?”
Betsy was sure; she didn’t want it, although she still climbed to the third floor and visited it sometimes.
Writing didn’t seem to fit in with the life she was living now. Carney didn’t write; Bonnie didn’t write. Betsy felt almost ashamed of her ambition. The boys teased her about being a Little Poetess. She felt that she would die if anyone discovered those poems in the handkerchief box, and the bits of stories she still wrote sometimes when she was supposed to be doing algebra.
She told more stories than she wrote. She told them to Margaret. They were about Margaret herself and a girl named Ethel Brown who lived in Detroit and was gloriously beautiful and led Margaret off on enchanting adventures.
Anna liked to listen to them too.
“That Ethel Brown,” she’d say. “She reminds me of the McCloskey girl. What was she wearing, Betsy?”
And Betsy would produce pale blue dresses and blue hats, or pale pink dresses and pink hats, or yellow dresses and yellow hats quite as she used to produce them for Tacy and Tib.
She told these stories mostly on evenings when her father, mother and Julia were out. Ethel Brown was a secret among Betsy, Margaret and Anna. When Betsy ran out of stories, Anna would tell some…not about Ethel Brown, of course. Hers concerned dragon flies who sewed up people’s eyes, about horse hairs that turned into snakes.
One day after an evening of story telling in the kitchen, Margaret plotted to secure a hair from Old Mag’s tail. She secured it, and put it in a bottle, and waited quiveringly to see it turn into a snake. It never turned but her faith in Anna was quite undiminished. Horse hairs had turned into snakes for Anna, as surely as Ethel Brown lived in Detroit.
At church now they were practising the Christmas music. Some of it was familiar and caused to ring in Betsy’s head the bells of childhood Christmases. Some of it was unfamiliar, for Episcopalian hymns were different from Baptist hymns. All of it was beautiful. It filled the empty chilly church with a glory like golden light.
Julia, who never cared what people thought, often went down into the nave and knelt and said a prayer. Sometimes Betsy went with her. She even went alone when Julia was practising a solo, and the nave was unlighted, and no one would see.
When she prayed alone like that, it seemed to her that she could hardly bear the painful sweetness of life. She prayed that she might grow prettier, that Tony might come to love her, that she might be a writer some day. It was amazing how light and free she felt, after she prayed.
Walking home on the rare occasions when they didn’t have masculine company, she and Julia talked about the Episcopal Church. Betsy had definitely decided that she too wished to join it.
“There’s a confirmation class beginning after Christmas,” Julia said. “The Bishop comes to confirm people in the spring. Oh, Bettina, I wish we could go into that class together!”
“So do I,” said Betsy. “Of course I’ll have to be baptized. Papa asked me if I didn’t want to be baptized this year but I put it off. I’d rather be baptized in the Episcopal Church if I’m going to be an Episcopalian.” She pondered. “We have to talk it out with Papa before that confirmation class begins.”
“Shall we do it right now?”
“No, we want to be able to tell him we’ve thought it over thoroughly. Let’s wait until after Christmas.”
“You’re so practical, Bettina! You have so much sense!” Julia cried.
She often said this, and Betsy did have sense. When Julia appealed to her for advice Betsy seemed to shuck off her romanticism as though it were an actor’s dress and become in an instant a balanced capable person.
But Julia had more courage. She never, Betsy felt, would have put Uncle Keith’s trunk in the attic and buried her poems in a handkerchief box.
Often Betsy strengthened herself with Julia’s courage. And she valued her sister, too, for a gift she had of widening horizons. Betsy lived more intensely in the moment than Julia did. She loved some things more ardently. Her home, the Sunday night lunches, The Crowd, holidays, Hill Street, meant more to her than they did to Julia. The hills that shut in the town of Deep Valley shut Betsy into her own dearly loved world.
Julia loved the Great World. She longed to sing, to act, to study, out in the Great World. The Great World was more real and much more important to Julia than the Deep Valley High School.
17
The Brass Bowl
CHRISTMAS WAS DEFINITELY in the air now, not only in the churches. In school both literary societies were preparing Christmas programs, and teachers were growing indulgent under the influence of the approaching holidays. Anna was involved with Christmas cookies, plum pudding, mince meat, and two kinds of fruit cake. Mrs. Ray had thought one kind enough, but Anna had said firmly that the McCloskeys always had two. And when Anna quoted the McCloskeys, the Rays were silent. More and more they bowed to this legendary family.
Mrs. Ray was busy with Christmas shopping, and one night at supper she announced:
“I hope you haven’t bought my Christmas present, Bob, for today I saw just what I want.”
“I thought you were Christmas shopping for the rest of us, not yourself,” jibed Mr. Ray, as he served Anna’s excellent corned beef hash with poached eggs, a favorite winter supper.
“I’ve bought plenty for the rest of you,” said Mrs. Ray, “and you’ll think so after New Year’s when the bills come in. But I can save you a great deal of shopping around by telling you exactly what I want!”
“What is it?” asked Margaret who had saved fifty cents.
Mrs. Ray was not ready to tell yet.
“It’s expensive,” she warned. “You can all go in together to get it. You don’t need to buy me another thing. I’ll be perfectly contented with just this.”
“But what is it?” cried Julia and Betsy.
“It’s in Dodd and Storer’s window. Just what I want for the front parlor window. A big brass bowl!”
“A brass bowl!” said Mr. Ray disgustedly. “I will not give you a brass bowl!”
“It’s perfectly stunning, Bob,” Mrs. Ray said. “I just have to have it. It looks just like me.”
“If a brass bowl looks just like you I’m sorry for your husband,” Mr. Ray said. “I always thought you had a pretty shape.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mrs. Ray. “It looks just like our big front window, like our parlor, like our home.”
“Well, you might as well forget it,” Mr. Ray answered. “I like to give you presents for yourself, not the house.”
“I’d rather have that brass bowl than a mink fur piece.”
“Bosh!” said Mr. Ray.
A few days later at supper Mrs. Ray mentioned the bowl again.
“I was shopping today,” she said. “That brass bowl is still in Dodd and Storer’s window. How does it happen you haven’t bought it?”
“I have no intention of buying it,” Mr. Ray answered. “I’m going to give you a personal present, not a house present.”
“I love this new house so much that it’s practically me.”
“Bosh!” said Mr. Ray again.
Every day that Mrs. Ray went shopping she went to Dodd and Storer’s to see whether the brass bowl was still in the window. It always was. And since she went Christmas shopping almost every day she mentioned the bowl at supper almost every night.”
“Haven’t you even seen it yet?” she demanded of Mr. Ray.
“I can’t help seeing it,” sa
id Mr. Ray. “I pass Dodd and Storer’s every day on my way to the store.”
“I’ve seen it too,” said Julia. “I went to look at it on my way to Mrs. Poppy’s for a lesson. It’s a beauty.”
“Bob,” said Mrs. Ray. “Do you hear what Julia says?”
“I hear,” answered Mr. Ray, “but your present is all bought and paid for. It’s in the safe at the store. And it isn’t a brass bowl.”
“Then you have to buy me two presents,” Mrs. Ray said.
A night or two afterwards at the supper table, Anna, passing gingerbread, remarked: “Charley and I walked past Dodd and Storer’s last night to see Mrs. Ray’s brass bowl.”
“Mrs. Ray’s brass bowl!” repeated Mr. Ray. “What do you mean, Mrs. Ray’s brass bowl?”
“The one you’re going to buy for her,” Anna replied.
“He certainly is,” chimed in Mrs. Ray. “What did Charley think of it?”
“He thought it was lovely,” said Anna. “And so did I. The McCloskeys used to have one just like it in their big bay window.”
“Do you hear that, Bob?” Mrs. Ray asked. “We can’t let the McCloskeys get ahead of us.”
Betsy and Tacy went down town on their Christmas shopping expedition. This was a tradition with them. They went every year, visiting every store in town, and buying, at the end, one Christmas tree ornament. When Tib lived in Deep Valley she used to go with them, and sometimes Winona went. This year they went alone.
It was joyful, as always, to walk with locked arms along a snowy Front Street, gay with its decorations of evergreen and holly boughs, and the merry jingle of sleigh bells. Betsy drew Tacy to a stop before Dodd and Storer’s window.
“Mamma has set her heart on that brass bowl,” she said.
“It looks just like Mrs. Ray,” said Tacy.
“That’s what she says,” answered Betsy. “I don’t believe Papa’s going to buy it for her, though. He hasn’t told us, but I believe he’s bought the mink fur piece she was teasing for before she saw the bowl.”
Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself Page 12