Betsy and the Boys

by Carolyn Haywood

  Betsy and the Boys

  Carolyn Haywood

  * * *

  Illustrated by the author

  * * *

  AN ODYSSEY/HARCOURT YOUNG CLASSIC

  HARCOURT, INC.

  Orlando Austin New York San Diego Toronto London

  * * *

  Copyright 1945 by Harcourt, Inc.

  Copyright renewed 1973 by Carolyn Haywood

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and

  retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work

  should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,

  Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

  www.HarcourtBooks.com

  First Harcourt Young Classics edition 2004

  First Odyssey Classics edition 1990

  First published 1945

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haywood, Carolyn, 1898—

  Betsy and the boys/Carolyn Haywood,

  p. cm.

  "An Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classic."

  Sequel to: Back to school with Betsy.

  Summary: Betsy and her fourth-grade friends discover football.

  [1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Football—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H31496Bg 2004

  [Fic]—dc22 2003056555

  ISBN 0-15-205106-6 ISBN 0-15-205102-3 (pb)

  Printed in the United States of America

  A C E G H F D B

  A C E G H F D B (pb)

  * * *

  To

  Elfrieda Klauder Parker

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  1. PANCAKES AND CREAM PUFFS 1

  2. NAMES ARE FUNNY SOMETIMES 16

  3. EENIE, MEENIE, MINIE, AND MO 28

  4. IT'S A SECRET 44

  5. HOW TO GET A FOOTBALL 55

  6. TWENTY-FOUR CAKES OF FLEA SOAP 70

  7. JUST-FOR-INSTANCE PRESENTS 87

  8. THE CHRISTMAS FAIRIES 100

  9. BETSY AND HER VALENTINES 114

  10. A STRANGE VALENTINE 125

  1. Pancakes and Cream Puffs

  Betsy, Billy, and Ellen had met in the first grade. They had become fast friends as they worked and played together. For three summers Ellen had gone with Betsy to spend the whole summer on Betsy's grandfather's farm. The third summer Billy had gone too, and the three children had played together for two long months. Now it was September and they were back in their homes, getting ready to return to school.

  One morning, the week before school opened, Betsy went over to Billy's house to spend the day. Betsy's mother and Billy's mother were going to a luncheon, so the two children were going to get their own lunch. They were both thrilled, for they loved to cook.

  "What are we going to cook?" asked Betsy, as soon as she arrived.

  "Pancakes!" shouted Billy. "Pancakes!"

  "Oh, yummy!" said Betsy. "They're practically my favorite food, 'cept cream puffs."

  Billy's mother came downstairs with her hat and gloves on. "Now, Billy," she said, "don't bother Daddy unless it is absolutely necessary. He's painting a magazine cover and he has to get it finished. I've given him his lunch on a tray."

  "O.K.," said Billy.

  "And I expect the kitchen to be just as clean when I come back as it is now," said Mrs. Porter. "Don't get the place in a mess."

  "Sure, sure," said Billy. "Everything will be dandy. We've cooked at school. We're good."

  Billy and Betsy went into the kitchen. Mrs. Porter had left the pancake batter in a pitcher. The griddle was on the stove.

  "I like to make 'em one at a time," said Billy. "That way you can make 'em big."

  "I do too," said Betsy.

  "I'll make the first one," said Billy. "You get the maple syrup out of the pantry closet."

  Betsy went into the pantry. She found the bottle of maple syrup and poured it into a pitcher.

  Meanwhile Billy picked up the pitcher of pan-cake batter to pour it on the griddle. He grasped the pitcher by its handle, but midway between the table and the stove the handle parted from the pitcher and the pitcher fell to the floor, pouring the batter all over the linoleum.

  "Hey, Betsy!" Billy yelled. "Come quick!"

  Betsy rushed through the pantry door. And then, to Billy's amazement, she slid all the way across the kitchen and right out the back door. There she landed in a heap.

  Billy ran toward Betsy, but he too slipped in the batter, which Betsy, as she slid, had spread all over the floor. Billy's slide was exactly like a baseball player sliding to second base.

  Miss Mopsie-Upsie Tail, Billy's dog, hearing the racket in the kitchen, came dashing through the pantry door. Like Betsy, she headed straight for the pancake batter. She reached it in a flash. Her legs slid from under her and she skidded on her fat little stomach right out of the door, and joined the children.

  Betsy and Billy were so surprised to find themselves in this jumbled mess that for a moment they were speechless. Miss Mopsie-Upsie Tail was the first one on her feet, and before Betsy or Billy had uttered a word she had begun to lick up the pancake batter.

  Billy was the first to speak. "Golly! Betsy! Did you hurt yourself?"

  "I don't think so," said Betsy.

  And then Billy began to laugh. "Gee, but you looked funny sliding out the door."

  "Well, you looked funny, too," laughed Betsy. The two children sat on the driveway and rocked with laughter.

  Finally they got up. When they looked at each other, they went off into peals again. Betsy's arms and legs were covered with pancake batter. One side of her dress was thick with the white mixture.

  "You certainly are a mess," said Billy.

  "Well, you don't look so good yourself," laughed Betsy. "You should see the seat of your trousers. You've got about a dozen pancakes right there."

  "Maybe I ought to sit on the griddle and bake them," chuckled Billy.

  This sent the children off again into fits of laughing.

  When they recovered, Billy said, "Well, no kidding. We've lost our lunch."

  Betsy did the best she could to wipe the batter off herself with a wet rag.

  "If I can find the recipe in the cookbook," said Billy, "I guess we could mix up some more batter."

  Billy opened the cookbook. He thumbed through the pages. "Oh, boy!" he cried. "Look at these pictures of desserts!"

  Betsy ran to the table and bent her head over the cookbook. "Oh, don't they look good!" she said.

  Billy turned a page. "Oh, Betsy!" he shouted. "Lookie! Here's a recipe for cream puffs."

  "Umm, yummy!" said Betsy.

  "What do you say we make cream puffs?" said Billy.

  "Oh, they would be too hard to make," replied Betsy.

  "No, they're not," said Billy. "Look," he added, pointing to the page. "It just takes butter and water and flour, salt and eggs. Bet that isn't any harder than pancakes. Come on, what do you say we make them?"

  "I think you ought to ask your daddy first," said Betsy.

  "Oh, all right," said Billy. "I'll ask him."

  Billy went halfway up the stairs. Then he called out, "Daddy!"

  "What is it?" Mr. Porter's voice came from the top of the house.

  "Can we make cream puffs?" Billy shouted.

  "Make what?" his daddy called back.

  "Cream puffs," yelled Billy.

  "Sure, sure," Daddy answered.

  "See?" said Billy, as the two children returned to the kitchen.
<
br />   Betsy opened the refrigerator. She took out the butter and the eggs. "How much butter does it say, Billy?"

  "It says a quarter of a pound," replied Billy.

  "Well, there's only a quarter of a pound here," said Betsy. "Maybe your mother wouldn't want us to use the butter."

  "I'll ask Daddy," said Billy.

  Billy ran halfway up the stairs again. "Daddy!" he shouted.

  "Now what is it?" his daddy called back.

  "Can we use the butter?" replied Billy.

  "Use what?" called Mr. Porter.

  "The butter," shouted Billy.

  "Sure, sure," came the voice from the attic.

  The children returned again to the kitchen. Billy put the butter and water in a saucepan and put the pan on the stove. Betsy brought a cookie tin from the closet. She greased the tin. "How many cream puffs are we going to make?" she asked.

  "Oh, I guess it will be a lot," said Billy, as he measured the flour and salt into a bowl.

  When the butter and water were boiling, Billy dumped the contents of the bowl into the saucepan and stirred it rapidly, just the way the recipe said to. Then he took it from the stove and added four eggs, one at a time. He beat each one in with the electric beater. When he finished, he said, "Say, Betsy, this isn't going to make very many cream puffs. It's only enough for about two. One for you and one for me."

  Betsy looked into the saucepan. "Yepper," she said, "you're right. That won't make more than two."

  "Well," said Billy, "guess it will be OK. We'll each have one anyway."

  He divided the dough into two equal parts. One half he put at the top of the cookie tin, the other lump at the bottom. "Gee!" he said. "I thought we would surely have two apiece. I'm getting awfully hungry."

  "So am I," said Betsy, as Billy put the pan in the oven.

  "Well, let's have some cornflakes and milk while we're waiting for the cream puffs to get done," said Billy.

  The children sat down at the kitchen table. They each ate two bowls of cornflakes with milk. Billy, meanwhile, was reading the cookbook. Suddenly he looked up. "Hey, Betsy!" he said. "This cookbook is crazy."

  "What do you mean, 'It's crazy'?" asked Betsy.

  "Well, it says here, 'This recipe will make twelve good-size cream puffs or thirty-six small ones,'" Billy read.

  "It's crazy," said Betsy. "It only makes two."

  When the children finished their cornflakes, Billy said, "I guess we better look at them. It's been fifteen minutes."

  He opened the oven door and the two children stooped down and looked inside. To their astonishment, there in the oven sat two golden pumpkins. They were the cream puffs, all blown up and six times as big as an ordinary cream puff and eighteen times as big as a small cream puff.

  The children's eyes looked as though they were about to fall out onto the kitchen floor.

  "Golly!" cried Billy. "I didn't know that they were going to blow up like balloons."

  "Jimminy!" cried Betsy. "I'll bet we've made the biggest cream puffs that were ever baked."

  "You betcha!" said Billy, closing the oven

  door. "It says to turn down the heat and leave them in twenty minutes. Boy! I can hardly wait to eat it."

  "Me too," said Betsy.

  The children proceeded to wash up the dishes. "We have to get this place cleaned up before Mother comes home," said Billy.

  "Yes," replied Betsy, looking at the batter that was still spread over the floor.

  Just as Billy took the cream puffs out of the oven his daddy walked into the kitchen.

  Billy placed the tin on the table.

  "For goodness' sake!" said Mr. Porter. "What are those things?"

  "Cream puffs!" exclaimed Billy with pride.

  "Cream puffs!" cried his daddy. "Who are they for, pray tell? An elephant?"

  "They're for us," said Billy.

  "Why didn't you make big ones?" asked his daddy. "And by the way, who, I would like to know, gave you permission to make cream puffs?"

  "Why, you did, Daddy," said Billy.

  "I did!" exclaimed Daddy. "When did I ever give you permission to make cream puffs?"

  "I called upstairs to you, Daddy," replied Billy.

  Mr. Porter turned to Betsy. "What about this, Betsy?" he asked. "What's your story?"

  "That's right, Mr. Porter," said Betsy. "I heard you. You said, 'Sure, sure.'"

  Mr. Porter scratched his nose. "Well, that sounds like me," he said. Then he turned to Billy. "What did you make them of?"

  Billy said, "Oh, butter and..."

  "Butter!" cried Mr. Porter. "You used the butter?"

  "But you said we could," replied Billy.

  "When did I ever say you could use the butter?" demanded Mr. Porter.

  "I called to you, Daddy," said Billy.

  "Yes, Mr. Porter," said Betsy, "and you said..."

  "Never mind, never mind, Betsy," interrupted Mr. Porter. "Don't tell me, I can guess."

  Just then Billy looked out of the window and saw his mother turning in the drive.

  "Excuse me, Daddy," he said. "I gotta go upstairs."

  But his daddy saw his mother coming, too. "No, you don't!" he said, catching hold of Billy.

  "But I gotta go upstairs, Daddy," pleaded Billy.

  "No, sir," said Daddy. "You're going to stay right here and face the music."

  "Hello!" called Mrs. Porter from the front hall. "What's going on?"

  "We're all here, Mother," called Mr. Porter. "We've been making cream puffs."

  When Mrs. Porter saw the cream puffs, she couldn't help laughing. "They're a little bit small, aren't they?" she said.

  "Well, it was the best they could do in this size oven. We'll have to get a bigger oven if these children are going to do very much cooking," said Mr. Porter with a twinkle in his eye. "They seem to have big ideas."

  "What is all over the floor?" asked Mrs. Porter.

  "Pancakes," said Billy. "The handle broke off of the pitcher."

  "And what is all over Betsy?" asked Mrs. Porter.

  "That's pancakes, too," said Billy.

  "I slipped," said Betsy.

  "Well, you two children get the mop and the floor cloth and clean up the floor. I'll take off my hat and make the filling for these giant cream puffs."

  "What do you mean, 'filling'?" said Billy. "Aren't they cream puffs?"

  "They will be when they are filled with custard," replied Mrs. Porter.

  Billy leaned against the table and looked at the results of their baking. "What?" he said. "I thought they were sure 'nough cream puffs now."

  Then he ran to the foot of the stairs. "Oh, Mother," he called, "am I going to eat it all myself?"

  "You are not," replied his mother.

  And Betsy heard Mr. Porter say to himself, "Good thing he didn't ask me. I would have said, 'Sure, sure.'"

  2. Names Are Funny Sometimes

  After the pancake and cream puff experience, Billy began calling Betsy "Pancake" and Betsy called Billy "Cream Puff."

  At first, Billy didn't mind. He just thought it was funny. But when the Wilson boys, who lived around the corner from Billy, heard Betsy call Billy Cream Puff, they screamed with laughter.

  There were four Wilson boys: Eddie, aged seven; the twins, Joe and Frank, who were nine; and Rudy, who was eleven.

  "Cream Puff!" they yelled. "What a name for a boy! Hiya! Cream Puff!"

  Billy's face got very red. He turned to Betsy. "Now, look what you did," he cried.

  "Well, you called me Pancake first," said Betsy.

  "Aw, Pancake is just funny. But Cream Puff." wailed Billy. "It's awful!" And he ran inside the house.

  Angry tears were in his eyes. When his mother saw him, she said, "Why, Billy! What's the matter?"

  "Oh, Betsy started to call me Cream Puff and those Wilson kids heard her, and now they're calling me Cream Puff and making fun of me," replied Billy.

  "Well now, don't pay any attention to them, Billy," said his mother. "Just act as though you
didn't care and soon they'll forget about it."

  "But no fella wants to be called a sissy name like Cream Puff. And I'll hit the first one who calls me that. I'll just hit him and knock him down."

  "Is that so?" said Mrs. Porter. "Well, that's the way savages behave. They knock each other down. But I thought I heard you telling Daddy the other night that you were civilized."

  "Well, I am civilized," said Billy.

  "Well, when you're civilized, you think things out," said his mother. "You decide what is the best way to behave towards people. You don't go up and punch them in the nose."

  Billy sat down in a chair and sulked. He could hear Betsy and the Wilson boys playing outside. They were playing with an old football.

  Pretty soon Billy grew tired of sitting still. He wanted to go out to play. Finally he jumped up and ran out of the front door.

  "Hiya, Cream Puff!" shouted Rudy, the moment Billy appeared. "Catch this."

  Billy paid no attention to the name. He caught the ball as it came through the air.

  "Let's have it here, Cream Puff," yelled Joe.

  Billy kicked the ball. "That ball is a mess," he said.

  "It's all worn out," said Betsy. "It won't hold any air."

  "It's better than none," replied Rudy. "It's all right to practice with until we get a good one. I'm going to get up a football team."

  "Can I be on it?" asked Billy.

  "Sure, Puff. You can be on it," said Rudy.

  "Can I?" yelled the twins together.

  "Yep," replied Rudy.

  "Can I be on the team?" asked Eddie.

  "No, you're too little," replied Rudy. Whereupon Eddie began to cry and went home.

  "What about me?" said Betsy.

  "Nix," replied Rudy. "Who ever heard of a girl on a football team?"

  "Girls can do anything," said Betsy. "Girls can fly airplanes and drive taxicabs and run streetcars. Why can't they play football?"

  "Cause they can't," said Rudy.

  "Well, I betcha I'll be on the team," said Betsy.

  "Betcha won't," said Rudy. Then he called to Billy, who had the ball. "Come on, Puff, let's see you make a forward pass."