Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “What are you going to wear?” Julia asked.

  “My white waist over pink, I guess. With a pink hair ribbon. And my pleated skirt.”

  “Wear it over blue, and a blue hair ribbon. Blue is so becoming to you, Bettina. You look divine in it.”

  Julia leaned over and kissed her sister lightly.

  “You rest now,” she said. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  “I wonder if Julia suspects,” Betsy thought, as the door closed.

  The possibility that Julia suspected was comforting somehow. Betsy stopped crying and rested hard. Afterwards Julia did her hair in a lofty pompadour, and the blue underwaist peeping through eyelet embroidery, the blue hair ribbon, were becoming indeed.

  Cab called for her before she was dressed, and as she was coming down stairs the bell rang again. As usual Anna rushed to answer it.

  “What did you have for dessert tonight, Anna?” Betsy heard in a familiar teasing tone. Then, “For gosh sake, look at Betsy in a pompadour!”

  Cab took up the cry.

  “A poetess in a pompadour!”

  “Come, Ray of Sunshine,” Tony said, “and give us a look. It’s stunning. It’s altogether too stunning for Christian Endeavor.”

  “Are you going to Christian Endeavor?” Betsy asked. She asked it quite naturally for already she felt all right. Tony was just the same.

  “Might as well,” he answered lazily. “Bonnie asked me to. She thinks I’m going to the dogs.” He stretched his arms and added in a gratified tone. “Yes sir, Bonnie thinks I’m going to the dogs.”

  Julia, who had seated herself at the piano, whirled around sharply.

  “Bonnie thinks so?” she asked. “Bonnie’s trying to reform you or convert you or something?”

  “I guess so,” Tony answered. “Why?”

  “Nothing,” answered Julia. “I just wondered.”

  “Now she knows,” Betsy thought.

  Julia’s glance was shrewd but her tone, as she turned back to the piano, was light.

  “Well, go get religion if you must,” she said. “But come back here afterwards. I got all the songs from ‘The Time, the Place and the Girl’ for Christmas. I thought we could try them out tonight.”

  “That sounds like fun,” said Tony. “I’ll be back all right.”

  With this expert sisterly backing, Betsy felt her last qualm vanish. As Tony helped her into her coat, she even forgot that the Ouija Board had spelled out T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

  20

  T-R-O-U-B-L-E?

  SHE REMEMBERED AT THE Christian Endeavor party. There was no religious service tonight, just Christmas carols, the tree, games, and refreshments. But Bonnie, as hostess, was as poised and gracious as when she presided over a meeting.

  Tony sauntered over to her at once. Betsy, watching out of a corner of her eye, saw Bonnie’s welcoming smile. They did not spend much time together, but it wasn’t Tony’s fault. She made it clear that as President of the Christian Endeavor she must scatter her attention over the entire group. This she did with tactful kindness, drawing awkward and bashful members into the circle, making sure there was a candy cane on the tree for everyone, serving cider and doughnuts.

  Tony gave up after the second try. He did not relish rebuffs. He joined Cab, Herbert and Betsy and they sat together, played together, ate together. He was in high spirits, and Betsy had fun, but the pricking was back.

  As the party was breaking up, Bonnie came over to Tony.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t pay much attention to you, Tony. You know, it’s a big responsibility, being President of Christian Endeavor.”

  “Sure, sure!” said Tony. “I had a good time. I don’t aim to associate with Presidents anyway. Or with Vice Presidents, or Secretaries, or Treasurers, or even Sergeants at Arms.”

  Bonnie looked troubled.

  “You’re angry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure I could make you understand if I had more time. You know I want you to come to Christian Endeavor regularly, not just for parties.”

  “Not a chance!” said Tony scornfully. “How do you like Betsy’s pompadour?”

  “I love it.” Bonnie smiled at Betsy. “You think he ought to come. Don’t you, Betsy?” she asked.

  “I certainly do,” Betsy replied.

  “If I could just talk with you!” Bonnie repeated. But Tony answered cryptically:

  “Sorry. I have a date with ‘The Time, the Place and the Girl.’”

  Betsy inwardly blessed Julia.

  “Well, I have a date to walk home with Pin,” said Bonnie, sounding annoyed. “I was going to suggest your stopping off at my house before we go skating tomorrow night, but I withdraw the suggestion.”

  “You can’t withdraw it,” said Tony triumphantly. “You never made it.”

  “Well, don’t come!” said Bonnie sharply, forgetting she was President of Christian Endeavor, “because I’ll be busy.”

  “Certainly I won’t come,” replied Tony. “I’m busy myself. But I’ll bet a nickel that if I did come you’d open the door with a bright and smiling face.”

  “I would not!”

  “You would too!”

  “I would not!”

  “Children, children!” said Cab. “Remember this is Christian Endeavor. Remember this is the Christmas season of peace and good will.” He began to laugh and Betsy joined in. She laughed almost too hard.

  “Come on,” said Tony, taking Betsy’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  Betsy didn’t enjoy the walk home as she had enjoyed another walk just two days before, although the same moon was shining and Cab again dropped off at his own home.

  “My family’s fit to be tied,” he said. “They don’t see why I go to Christian Endeavor anyway when I’m Welsh Reformed. But I wouldn’t have missed that brawl you and Bonnie had tonight for a farm, Tony.”

  “Bonnie,” said Tony, “gives me a pain.”

  “Are you going to call for her tomorrow night?”

  “I am not! What’s more, I’m going to smoke a cigarette as soon as we get to the pond.”

  “Tony! You wouldn’t!” cried Betsy.

  Tony laughed. “Wait and see,” he said.

  After that he and Betsy went to the Ray house, and with Julia and Fred they sang all the songs from “The Time, the Place and the Girl.” They popped corn and made fudge. They had a marvelous time.

  “How did Bonnie’s reforming Tony come out?” Julia asked casually as she and Betsy were preparing for bed.

  “Ran into a snag,” said Betsy. “I think he likes her though.”

  “That reforming,” said Julia, “is one of the oldest lines in the world, and one of the best.”

  “But she’s really and truly interested in getting Tony to join,” Betsy said soberly.

  “And she really and truly likes him,” Julia answered tartly.

  “Yes, I think she does,” said Betsy. She remembered the midnight confab she and Bonnie had had after Alice’s party. Bonnie had been trying to find out then whether Betsy liked Tony. Perhaps she should have confided?

  “They had a quarrel tonight,” Betsy said slowly. “And Tony says he’s going to smoke a cigarette at the pond tomorrow night just to make her mad.”

  “Hmm!” said Julia. She looked worried. “But you don’t really care for Tony, do you, Bettina?” she asked. “Not seriously, I mean.”

  “No,” answered Betsy, glad to salvage her pride. “All the boys are alike to me. I think I like Cab the best. But in a very unromantic way.”

  “That’s good,” said Julia, and kissed her, and went off to bed.

  Betsy wound her hair on the Magic Wavers so tightly that it hurt. She had a terrible feeling inside. She felt as though her mother were sick, or as though she had been flunked out of school, or as though the end of the world were drawing near. She wound her hair on the Wavers so tightly that tears came into her eyes.

  The weather turned cold that night. The thermometer dropped like a bucket into a deep well.

 
; “I think it’s too cold for skating,” Mrs. Ray said the next afternoon, and Betsy’s hopes rose. “Maybe the boys and girls would just as soon come here for the rarebit and forget about skating.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Mamma,” Betsy answered vivaciously, for if there was going to be a skating party she wanted to be allowed to go. “But I’ll telephone Carney and Bonnie and see what they think.”

  How wonderful, she thought on the way to the phone, how marvelous it would be if the skating party were called off! It seemed to her that the threat implicit in Tony’s cigarette would melt into nothingness if The Crowd were assembled around her own fire.

  “I’ll try to make them call it off,” she said over her shoulder.

  But Carney scoffed at the idea.

  “Why, this is grand skating weather,” she replied. “The pond is swept and the boys are out there now laying a bonfire. I just love a cold night for skating, don’t you?”

  “The colder the better for me,” Betsy answered. “It was Mamma’s idea to call it off. I was going to telephone Bonnie and ask her opinion but I won’t bother now.”

  “She’s right here,” Carney answered. “We’re sitting by the fire doing shadow embroidery on our new waists. Come on down and I’ll make some fudge.”

  “No, thanks. My family thinks I’m going out too much.”

  “Where have I heard that before?” laughed Carney. “Wait, then! I’ll call Bonnie.”

  “Hello, Betsy?” came Bonnie’s soft voice.

  “Hello,” said Betsy. “My mother had some insane idea that it was too cold for the skating. But Carney and I have decided to forget it.”

  “Oh, yes!” said Bonnie. “It isn’t a bit too cold. Unless your mother is really worried, Betsy?” It was like Bonnie to add that.

  “No. It was just a suggestion.”

  “What did you think of the fracas Tony and I got into last night?”

  “I think he’s smitten with you,” said Betsy, laughing heartily.

  “Oh, Betsy!” said Bonnie. “You’re the one Tony’s always hanging around.”

  “He’s just part of my long voluminous train,” answered Betsy. “It’s so long I have to measure it every night.”

  “Do you use a yardstick?” giggled Bonnie.

  “I use algebra,” said Betsy. “X plus X plus Y plus Z. Wouldn’t O’Rourke be pleased if she could hear me spouting algebra?”

  “Betsy, you’re killing!” Bonnie dissolved in mirth. “Carney wants to know what the joke is. She says, why don’t you change your mind and come on down.”

  “No,” said Betsy. “Tell her I’m sitting by my own fire doing algebra problems about how many boys are smitten with me. Good-by, Bonnie. Don’t forget what I said. Tony has a case on you.”

  “You’re killing. Good-by,” Bonnie replied.

  Betsy felt better when she came away from the phone. She felt rather shaky; there was something upsetting in the air. But she no longer felt like crying.

  “Tony has a case on Bonnie,” she said gaily to her mother.

  “I don’t wonder,” Mrs. Ray replied. “Bonnie’s a very attractive girl. And she’d be good for Tony; don’t you think so?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Betsy. “And the skating party is definitely on, just as I thought it would be.”

  21

  T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

  CAB, HERBERT AND TONY arrived together that evening to walk to the pond with Betsy.

  “I thought you were stopping by for Bonnie,” Betsy said jokingly to Tony.

  “Like fun!” he answered. “Too much Christian Endeavor around that house for me!”

  “Bonnie’s going with Larry and Carney,” Herbert remarked. “When I heard of that set-up I telephoned and volunteered my invaluable services. But she turned me down.”

  “You see?” said Betsy. “She’s expecting you, Tony.”

  “What about Pin?” Tony inquired.

  “He’s taking Winona.”

  “How does that happen?” Julia asked.

  “Bonnie turned him down too,” said Herbert. “What ails the girl?”

  Betsy glanced at Tony.

  “Pin sort of likes Winona,” he said. “They’re both tall, and they’re both thin, and they’re both crazy.”

  Betsy felt dazed.

  She put on the red stocking cap, determinedly pulling out her curls, tucked the red muffler at its most becoming angle, picked up her skates and swung them.

  “Who wants the great and supreme honor?”

  “Humphreys,” said Herbert, and grabbed them. But when he had them in his hands he regarded them disapprovingly.

  “They look dull,” he said.

  They did look dull. Betsy had not skated that season. She hated skating so much that even the sight of skates was abhorrent to her, and she had dug these out of the basement cupboard only that afternoon.

  She had dressed warmly, but as soon as she went out of doors she realized that she hadn’t dressed warmly enough. The air went down her throat like an icy drink. Inside her coat and dress and the extra warm underwear she shivered.

  “You’ll warm up when we get to skating,” said Tony, who was holding her elbow.

  “I’m not a very good skater,” Betsy said.

  “If you skate half as well as you dance I’ll be satisfied.”

  “Maybe I have improved since last year,” Betsy thought, meaning that she hoped she had. But her spirits were low.

  Even the sight of the pond did not lift them although the bonfire was beautiful. Branches had been piled higher then her head and their wild glow reddened the snow.

  “Gosh, we’re going to have fun!” said Herbert. “Sit down, Betsy, and let me get your skates on.”

  “I’ll do it,” Tony said. That should have made her feel better but it didn’t. Her qualms mounted as she sat down on the bench while Tony expertly buckled on her skates.

  Carney and Bonnie hailed her. They had shed their coats but they didn’t look cold. They wore heavy turtle neck sweaters and stocking caps, pulled efficiently down.

  “You’d better pull that cap down around your ears,” said Tony, and even helped to stuff her curls back underneath it. Betsy felt that she looked hideous with no hair showing and her big clumsy coat. She struggled to her feet.

  Tony was kind about her poor skating. He said her ankles must be weak, and gave a long dissertation about how to strengthen weak ankles. After a turn or two around they came back to the bench beside the fire. About that time Tacy, Alice and Tom arrived. Cab asked Betsy to skate, and Tony skated off to take Carney away from Larry.

  Cab, too, was kind about Betsy’s deficiencies. Herbert, however, who skated with her next, was brutally frank.

  “Gosh darn it, Betsy!” he said, “Skating’s so easy. Why haven’t you learned?”

  “I just don’t like to skate,” said Betsy crossly.

  “Well anybody born in Minnesota ought to like to skate,” said Herbert. “And ought to know how.”

  Betsy’s ankles wobbled. She lurched and leaned on Herbert heavily. Larry and Carney flashed past her, together. Cab and Bonnie came behind. Pin and Winona were skating separately. Both were skillful. Tall and thin, Pin looked like a dragon fly as one long leg after another swung easily through the air.

  “I think I’ll go back to the bonfire,” Betsy said.

  “Heck!” answered Herbert. “If you want to skate I’ll drag you around.”

  “I don’t want to skate,” said Betsy. “You have enough to do, dragging yourself.”

  “Well for Pete’s sake!” said Herbert, breaking off the spat with an exclamation so sincerely startled that Betsy said, “Who? What? Where?”

  “There,” said Herbert. “Tony! What do you think of that?”

  Tony was standing beside the fire, one foot on the bench in a nonchalant attitude. Between two fingers he held a cigarette at which he took an occasional careless puff.

  “Some of the fellows smoke of course,” said Herbert hastily. “But just behind the b
arn, as it were. Not at a party with girls around. What’s got into Tony?”

  Betsy did not answer.

  Carney had seen him. Betsy saw Carney tug at Larry’s arm. Larry turned to look and then Larry and Carney skated rapidly toward Bonnie, and tugged at Bonnie’s arm.

  Tony blew smoke thoughtfully upward, threw the cigarette down and mashed it out, took a pack from his pocket and selected another.

  “For Pete’s sake!” Herbert said again.

  Betsy saw Bonnie speak to Cab, then leave him alone on the ice. Skating expertly, looking round and cute in her big sweater, she went rapidly toward Tony.

  “Hello,” said Tony, when Bonnie reached him, and with ostentatious politeness threw his cigarette into the fire.

  “Tony,” said Bonnie, “will you skate with me?”

  “Isn’t it customary,” asked Tony, “for the boy to ask the girl?”

  “Maybe,” said Bonnie. “But I’m asking you. Please, Tony.”

  “Do you want to skate or preach?” he asked.

  Bonnie smiled. After all, she was not at Christian Endeavor now. She smiled and put out a mittened hand.

  “Skate,” she said.

  Pin and Winona started clowning on the ice. Winona sat down with a bang and laughed. Cab was trying to skate backward with Tacy. Tom was with Alice. Betsy told Herbert that she had twisted her ankle, and insisted that she liked to sit by the fire alone. He skated off, and she sat by the fire alone.

  Tony and Bonnie skated slowly, in perfect harmony, their arms crossed in front, their hands clasped. Betsy tried not to look at them. She looked at the fire. She looked up at the cold disinterested moon and off at the pale unfriendly landscape.

  She watched the other skaters, and laughed at their mishaps, and waved when they waved to her. Now and again one or another skated over to sit with her and talk. But Tony didn’t come, nor Bonnie.

  By and by Tacy noticed that Tony and Bonnie had skated together for a long, long time. She and Cab skated over to Betsy.

  “I’m cold,” said Tacy. “Can I keep company with you?”

  “I’m hungry,” said Cab. “When do we start back to the Ray house?”