“Be a good girl if you get in ahead of me,” Betsy said to Margaret. Margaret smiled; she didn’t speak. The party for Washington and Abie was still a secret between them.
Betsy fully intended to come home promptly but a succession of things interfered. Tib had to stay after school for make-up work and persuaded Betsy to wait for her.
“I won’t be two minutes.”
Cab and Dennie, as it happened, waited too, and when Tib came out of German class after not two minutes but ten, they proposed going to Heinz’s for peach pecan sundaes.
“I have to go home,” Betsy objected.
“Fine,” said Cab. “Go home by way of Heinz’s.”
“We’ll hurry,” Tib promised.
And they hurried going down but coming home they loitered, acting silly, trying to walk on snow drifts which capsized under their weight. Tib and Dennie left them at the corner of Plum Street and Broad and climbing the hill with Cab Betsy realized suddenly how late it had grown. The sun was so low that the glow had gone off the snow. It went off her spirits, too.
“Oh, we can have a party for the animals anytime! It doesn’t need to be this particular day,” she thought, but she quickened her steps, and after she had parted from Cab she went still faster. Feeling guilty she sang and made a lively racket as she ran up the porch steps.
It seemed odd that no lights shone through the windows. Margaret knew how to light the gas. Going quickly into the dim hall, Betsy saw that preparations had been made for the party in the parlor. Four sofa cushions had been laid around a luncheon cloth spread on the floor. A magazine lay open with a paste pot and a pair of scissors near. Margaret must have started to make the place cards. But where were they? Where was Margaret?
Betsy went into the shadowy kitchen. She saw an empty salmon can, and the door of the oven stood open. Had Margaret been making toast to go with the salmon? Then where was it? Where was Margaret?
“She’s gone over to see Mrs. Wheat,” thought Betsy. But she knew she didn’t believe it. If she believed that Margaret was cozily drinking cambric tea next door, she wouldn’t have this queer feeling in her stomach.
Washington didn’t look up from the couch where he was sleeping, but Abie had come to meet her and now brushed against her ankles.
“Where’s Margaret?” Betsy asked him.
Abie barked, a sharp bark and was silent.
Betsy went to the foot of the stairs and called, “Margaret, where are you?”
She was relieved beyond all reason when Margaret’s voice answered, “Here I am. Oh, Betsy, I’m so glad you’ve come!”
Margaret came running down the stairs. She was wearing her party dress, the blue silk piped with pink she had worn for her mother’s parties. Her pink party hair ribbons were tied into awkward bows. One had a small loop and a long end; the other had a big loop and a short end. Betsy felt a pang at her heart when she saw those bows.
“I’m so sorry,” she began. “I was slow getting home but we’ll have the party tomorrow—”
Margaret interrupted.
“Betsy,” she said. “Look at my eye lashes. Aren’t they curly?”
“Why, baby, your eye lashes are always curly.” But Betsy looked closely at Margaret’s beautiful eyes. She drew her to a window and stared intently in the fading light. Margaret’s eye lashes had been unusually long. They were short now and the ends were frizzled.
“Margaret!” cried Betsy. “What have you done?”
“I was trying to have the party,” Margaret said. “You see, Betsy, Washington and Abie had been invited. I couldn’t not have a party after they were invited. I started to make the place cards, but they kept looking and you’d said they weren’t supposed to see and I was lonesome if I kept them shut up in my room. So I thought I’d let the place cards go and start the lunch.
“I thought I didn’t really need to cream the salmon. They like it just as well the way it comes out of the can. But I wanted to put it on toast to make it a party. So I lighted the oven and it exploded.”
“Exploded!” Betsy cried. “What do you mean?”
“It just exploded. There was a big bang. And it made my eye lashes curly.”
“What did you do?”
“I turned it off,” said Margaret. “Oh, Betsy, I was scared, though! I was awfully scared!” and throwing her arms around her sister Margaret began to cry. She cried in big wrenching sobs which tore at Betsy’s heart. Margaret didn’t cry often. She was the reserved one, the Persian Princess, she was very different from most girls’ little sisters and brothers who were always crying.
Betsy felt a wave of awfulness. She hugged Margaret tight.
“Margaret,” she said, forcing her voice to be steady. “Do your eyes hurt? Do they feel funny?”
It seemed to her that a century passed before Margaret answered.
“My eyes are all right. It’s just that the lashes are curly. I’d like them that way if I hadn’t been so scared…” and Margaret began to cry again.
Betsy knew that Margaret wasn’t crying only because of her fright. It was her disappointment about the party, the long hours of watching for Betsy who didn’t come. Betsy started to cry, too, from relief that Margaret’s eyes were safe and because she was sorry and ashamed. But she cried for only a minute. It came to her suddenly that she was sixteen years old, too old to cry in a situation like this where there was something else to do.
She pushed the loose hair back from Margaret’s wet cheeks and kissed her.
“We must light the gas and get busy,” she said briskly. “Papa will be coming in and I’ve promised him a Dom. Sci. supper. It was horrid of me to forget the party, but I’m going to try to make it up to Washington and Abie. I’m going to let them sit at the table tonight, right beside us, on chairs. We’ll have creamed salmon, of course. And Margaret, I’ll tell you what we’ll do.”
“What?” asked Margaret, drying her eyes and blowing her nose.
“I’m going to bake them a joint birthday cake.”
“What does ‘joint’ mean?”
“It means it will belong to them together. Half will be for Washington and half for Abie. I’ll frost half in vanilla and half in chocolate. Come on now.”
“We’ll give Washington the chocolate side because he’s the oldest,” Margaret said.
Betsy had learned how to bake cake in her Domestic Science class. She baked a pretty good one. Supper was late but Mr. Ray didn’t mind when he heard it was a birthday party. Betsy told him about the oven and he looked at Margaret’s eyes keenly but he didn’t ask how Margaret had happened to be lighting the oven alone. Perhaps he noticed that Betsy’s eyes were red.
When Betsy said her prayers that night she started to cry again.
“Dear God!” she said. “It was good of you not to let anything happen to Margaret’s eyes. And this is the year I made the resolution to be better around home. I was going to try to take Julia’s place….”
She hadn’t, she thought, her conscience aching, done very well at that.
Julia had always been such a wonderful older sister. “Even if I tried, I couldn’t be to Margaret what Julia has been to me. There’s too much difference in our ages. Six whole years.”
It must be lonely, she thought, not to have a sister nearer your age than that.
“I’m going to do the best I can,” she promised God, “to keep close to Margaret. I’ll never, never, never neglect her again.”
She stayed on her knees a long time, her head buried in her arm, thinking about Margaret’s frizzled lashes.
What if her mother had come home from the Twin Cities to find that something had happened to Margaret’s beautiful eyes?
17
A Bolt from the Blue
MRS. RAY CAME home wearing a new spring hat, bearing gifts and radiant with pride. The Mikado had been a glorious success and Julia, an enchanting Yum Yum.
“Even the Twin City papers raved, Bob. Oh, I wish you could have been there! Five sororities sent her flow
ers. She carried those from the Epsilon Iotas.”
“Is that the bunch she’s going to join?”
“Yes. She’s practically an Epsilon Iota now. They can’t bid her until Pledge Day, though.” Mrs. Ray outlined briefly what they all knew already. Pledge Day came at the end of Rush Week. On the evening preceding, all the sororities gave formal dinners to which they invited only the freshmen they definitely planned to bid.
“And the freshman goes to the dinner of the group she plans to accept. Julia will go to the Epsilon Iota dinner. We bought her gown while I was in the cities, Betsy. Yellow satin with a train. It’s stunning.”
“What do you think of sororities anyway?” Mr. Ray asked in a grumpy tone.
Mrs. Ray hesitated. “Why, the Epsilon Iotas are charming girls. They were lovely to me. But I don’t know….”
“What is it?” Mr. Ray wanted to know.
“Well, they’re so terribly important to Julia. I don’t think it would be that way if she cared more about her University work. But she doesn’t, Bob. She really doesn’t give a snap about any of her studies except singing. What makes it so bad is that Fraulein von Blatz is going away next year.”
Mr. Ray sat silent, troubled.
“I wish she could go to Germany with Fraulein,” Mrs. Ray said.
Mr. Ray was silent a long time, and Mrs. Ray, Betsy and Margaret watched him while he puffed on his cigar, blowing thoughtful rings.
“No, Jule,” he said at last. “I think I’m doing the right thing in asking her to go through the U. Music is a very hard career. She’s too young to make such an important decision.
“I’ve told her she can do as she pleases after she’s through college. I’ll even scrape up the money to help her. But I’m hoping that she’ll meet someone she wants to marry, settle down and use her voice for lullabies,” said Mr. Ray looking pleased.
Betsy thought that he didn’t entirely understand Julia. No matter whether she went through the University or not, Julia would give her life to music. But Betsy didn’t speak, for like all the family she had a profound respect for her father’s wisdom. She was even willing to concede that the experiment of college was a wise one. He wanted Julia to be sure, just as he had wanted Julia and Betsy to be sure before they joined the Episcopal Church.
Lent had begun and Betsy, Tacy and Tib had all given up dancing. Betsy was glad to make a sacrifice, for worry about Tony and repentance about Margaret weighed her down a little.
“Now,” she wrote to Herbert, “will I show an unparalleled exhibition of courage, steadfastness, self-denial, etc.!!!!!!”
She did shortly, for she refused to go with Dave to the basketball dance. (Not that he asked her; she refused him in advance, via Tib and Lloyd.)
Mrs. Ray had brought her the Soul Kiss music from the cities. Betsy found, to her delight, that she could play the waltz. Tony, Cab, Tacy and Tib sang it to her stumbling accompaniment—when Winona wasn’t around, and they couldn’t do better.
Miss Mix was making Betsy a new dress for Easter. Shadow rose, with a high waistline, long tight satin sleeves and a directoire sash, also of satin, knotted low on the left side. She and her mother bought her a black chopping-bowl hat trimmed with the same shade of rose.
The snow was melting and it was fun to walk after school with the sun on one’s head and slush under foot. Robins and bluebirds sang in the bare trees and there were pussy willows and red-winged blackbirds in the slough.
Cars which had been put away through February were appearing in the muddy streets. Phyllis Brandish again drove Joe Willard down to the Sun after school. The Okto Deltas would have enjoyed rattling about in Carney’s auto but Carney was working too hard for that. She was buckling down to study on those college entrance exams.
The juniors, too, were looking ahead. Every year they entertained the seniors at a banquet, which was the outstanding social event of the spring. One of Betsy’s wishes, when she made her plans on Murmuring Lake, had been to head up a committee for the junior-senior banquet.
“Do you know what committee I’d like to have?” she asked Tacy, walking to school on the day of the class meeting to discuss the banquet. “The decorating committee. That sounds queer, I know, because I’m not a bit artistic, but I have an idea I’d like to carry out.”
“What is it?” Tacy asked.
“Turn the school into a park for banquet night. Move in potted palms, and some porch swings. Make the tables in the Dom. Sci. room look like picnic tables. Have a fish pond—we could fish for packages in it. And maybe a Lovers’ Lane.”
“Why, Betsy!” Tacy cried. “That’s a wonderful idea.”
“Oh, I hope I can do it!” Betsy cried. “I’m apt to be head of some committee, so why can’t it be the decorating committee?”
The meeting took place after school and the Okto Delta juniors sat together. They had become more and more clannish since resentment at the sorority had begun to seep through the school. Betsy would have been with them but she sat on the platform with the other class officers. Stan Moore was president as he had been the year before. He and Betsy had both kept their offices and Betsy, secretly, hoped to be re-elected for the senior year.
Stan, a tall relaxed boy, usually conducted a meeting admirably but today he acted nervous. After rambling on about the banquet, stressing its importance, of which everybody was aware, and announcing the date in May which had already been fixed, he said that he was ready to name the committee heads.
“Oh, dear!” thought Betsy. “I hope I get the decorating committee.”
Stan cleared his throat and started to read. He stopped and cleared it again but then he continued in a bold voice. It was a surprising list. The six Okto Delta juniors were all prominent in school, especially Betsy, Alice and Winona. But not one was named for any committee. The decorating committee went to Hazel Smith.
The Okto Deltas sat very still when Stan had finished. Betsy, on the platform, swallowed hard. When the discussion passed to other matters, they stole furtive looks at one another, but even Winona was silent.
At the end of the meeting Hazel hurried over to Betsy.
“I want to get you before somebody else does,” she said. “Will you serve on my committee? Where’s Tacy? I want her, too.”
“There she is,” said Betsy. “And thank you, Hazel! I’d love to be on your committee.”
The class filed out of the assembly room. Carney, waiting in the hall, was puzzled by the dazed expression on the faces of her Okto Delta sisters.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” said Winona. “Maybe we all have poison ivy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Not one of us was given a committee.”
“That’s funny,” Carney said. “I wasn’t given a senior committee either. I thought perhaps it was because I was studying so hard.” But that, everyone knew, was unlikely. Carney had always been outstanding in her class. “It looks as though they had something against us as a group,” she added, looking sober.
“Can it be dear old Okto Delta?” asked Winona.
“I’ve heard,” Alice said, “that we’re called a bunch of snobs.”
“That isn’t fair,” cried Betsy. “We’re not the least bit snobbish.”
“And we can live without their old committees,” said Tib, tossing a yellow head.
But Betsy’s mind flashed ahead to next year, her senior year, her last in Deep Valley High. She wouldn’t, she admitted, like it at all not to have a share in next year’s thrilling climactic activities.
The Okto Deltas ignored the whole matter at their next meeting, a particularly silly one.
“The Sistren,” Secretary Ray wrote in the minutes, “played statues, leadman, and other kid games. They acted dippy.”
The girls tried to gloss over their unfortunate position in school, but they felt a little subdued and most of them applied themselves energetically to school work.
Betsy had had a good year in Engl
ish. Her work had been merely acceptable in other classes; she and Tacy and Tib had not yet made their herbariums for Botany. But ever since Miss Fowler had praised her work last November Betsy had worked hard on Foundations of English Literature.
She always looked forward to English class, both because she liked the subject and because she enjoyed the competition of Joe Willard. They never saw each other outside of school but in English class there was a bond between them. They talked for each other’s benefit sometimes; they sought each other’s eyes when a good point was made; they smiled across the room when something funny happened. This intimacy always stopped at the door of the classroom and Betsy was surprised one March day to find him waiting for her.
His hands were in his pockets and he was smiling, his eyes very bright under the light crest of hair.
“Hey!” he said. “What do you think of the topic for the Essay Contest?”
“Why…” said Betsy. “I haven’t heard what it is.”
“You haven’t? Well, it’s a queer one: ‘The History of the Deep Valley Region.’”
“‘The History….’” Betsy’s face lighted with a smile of utter joy. She rose on her toes. “Joe Willard!” she cried, shaking her finger in his face. “You haven’t a chance!”
“Oh, is that so!”
“Yes, it’s so! Were you even born in Deep Valley?”
“I was born in Brainerd. But you didn’t start taking notes on local history in the cradle, did you?”
“Practically,” said Betsy. “You see, my father loves it. His people came to Iowa in a covered wagon and he was only nineteen when he struck out for himself and came up here. Besides, there’s Grandma Slade.”
“Grandma Slade?”
“Tom’s Grandmother. We always have Thanksgiving dinner with the Slades, and you ought to hear her stories. Why, she was here when the Sioux went on the warpath, blankets, feathers, tomahawks and all.”
“Look here!” Joe said, looking at her smilingly. “You mustn’t be spilling all your material. I’m your rival, you know. I’m agin you. I’m the fellow the Philomathians picked just on purpose to outwit you.”