“Gosh darn, those bloodhounds were fierce!”
“And to think I touched them today!”
“Did you see their jaws drip?”
“Golly, yes! Do you think they’ll come out, Winona?”
“I don’t think so. You see, there’s a show tonight. They’ll probably be fed inside.”
They all stared expectantly at the stage door that said in big white letters, “Private. Keep out.”
It swung open and a man in a silk hat emerged. Swinging a cane, he walked briskly down the alley.
“Was that St. Clare?”
“Naw! Too old.”
“It was too St. Clare. I recognized him.”
The door swung open again, and again. More silk toppers, canes, and fancy vests with watch chains draped across them. Large dashing hats, short pleated jackets, sweeping skirts, pocket books dangling from chains. Men and women looking remotely like the characters in the play came out by ones and twos. Some looked tired; others were fresh and gay; many showed traces of burned cork.
“Is that Uncle Tom?” “Is that Topsy?” “There comes Simon Legree!”
Most of the stage folk smiled when they heard the whispers. Simon Legree cracked an imaginary whip.
At last a woman came out with a little girl, unmistakably Little Eva. The rosy cheeks she had had in the play were gone; she was pale. But the shining light curls were the same. Her bonnet and coat were of blue velveteen. She wore white kid gloves and carried a small purse on a chain.
She and the woman (who looked ever so faintly like Eliza), walked up the alley and over to Front Street. Betsy and Tacy, Tib, and Winona followed at a respectful distance behind. Tom and Herbert followed too, still burning-eyed. Now and then the little girl turned around. Her eyes were large and blue.
To the surprise of all, the woman did not stop at the fine big Melborn Hotel. She and Little Eva proceeded up Front Street to the Deep Valley House. This was the place farmers stayed when they came to town. There was a hitching shed for horses behind the low wooden structure.
“If I was Evelyn Montmorency,” said Tib, “I’d stay at the Melborn Hotel.”
It was just like Tib to mention that. Betsy and Tacy and Winona all spoke quickly.
“She could stay there if she wanted to.”
“I should say she could! The most beautiful and talented child actress in America!”
“Probably it just didn’t pay them. They’re leaving town so soon.”
At the door of the Deep Valley House, the little girl turned around again. She smiled at the children, not radiantly as she had smiled on the stage, but shyly.
“Good-by,” she said.
“Good-by,” shouted Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona.
“Good-by,” said Herbert and Tom.
Unexpectedly, they pulled off their caps, staring in adoration.
Little Eva went into the Deep Valley House and the door closed behind her. The children did not see her again. But none of them was ever to forget her.
6
Betsy’s Desk
ETSY, TACY, and Tib did not give The Repentance of Lady Clinton. Winona understood. She understood so well that she never even mentioned it. They gave plenty of plays that year, and Winona was in them, but they did not give that one.
Mrs. Muller cleaned her downstairs without the satisfaction of having it mussed up first. Uncle Keith’s costumes were aired and put away without having had their hour on the boards. Betsy helped her mother fold the garments and lay them in the flat-topped trunk. As they worked she asked questions, for since seeing Uncle Tom’s Cabin she had a new interest in her actor-uncle.
“He’ll come home sometime,” Mrs. Ray said. “He must want to see me again, just as I want to see him. He was awfully hurt and angry when he left. And he doesn’t know that our stepfather has gone out to California with mother.”
“Do you think he’s still an actor, Mamma?”
“Yes, I do. Of course he went into the Spanish War. But if anything had happened to him the government would have told us. He must be just trouping, waiting for the big success he wanted to have before he came home.
“‘I’ll come home, Jule, when I have a feather in my cap.’ That’s what he said when he said good-by to me.” Betsy’s mother paused in folding a Roman toga, and her face grew sad with the old sad memory of the night Keith ran away.
“What did he look like, Mamma?” asked Betsy, although she had heard a hundred times.
“He looked like me,” Mrs. Ray answered. “That is, he was tall and thin with a pompadour of red wavy hair. His eyes were brighter than mine, so full of fun and mischief. And he had the gayest smile I ever saw. None of you children look like him. You look like your father and his sisters. You get plenty of talents from your Uncle Keith, though.”
Mrs. Ray’s voice lifted proudly. She finished folding the Roman toga and laid it into the trunk.
“Does Julia get her reciting from him?” asked Betsy, knowing the answer well.
“Yes, she does. And her beautiful singing voice. And her gift at the piano. How Keith could make the piano keys fly, though he never had a lesson in his life! He could play and sing as well as act and he could draw and paint and model and write …”
“Write!” cried Betsy. She always loved to hear about the writing part.
“Yes, write. He wrote poems, plays, stories, everything. He was always scribbling, just as you are. And that reminds me, Betsy. Isn’t it getting pretty cold to write up in the maple tree?”
Mrs. Ray knew all about the office in the maple tree. She had given Betsy the cigar box. Betsy’s mother was a great believer in people having private places.
“Yes, it is,” said Betsy. “I haven’t been writing lately.”
“You must bring your papers indoors then. Your father and I are very proud of your writing. We want you to keep at it. You ought to have a desk but we can’t afford one yet. I’ll find a place for your things, though.”
Mrs. Ray smoothed the last costume into place and closed the trunk.
“Rena will help me lift this into the garret,” she said. “Come on into your room, Betsy.”
Betsy followed her mother into the front bedroom. It was a small room with low tentlike walls. There was a single window at the front looking across to Tacy’s house and the trees and the sunsets behind it. The big bed for Julia and Betsy, the small bed for Margaret, the chest of drawers, and the commode for wash bowl and pitcher filled the room.
Mrs. Ray pulled out the drawers in the chest. They were all crammed full. She looked around in some perplexity.
“I could make a place for your things in the back parlor,” she said. “But I’ve noticed that you like to get away by yourself when you write.”
“Yes, I do,” said Betsy.
“It’s got to be here then,” Mrs. Ray answered. She tapped her lips thoughtfully.
“I have it!” she cried after a moment, her eyes flashing as brightly as she had said that Uncle Keith’s used to flash.
“What?” asked Betsy.
“The trunk. Uncle Keith’s trunk. You may have that for a desk. It can fit here under the window out of the way. It’s just the thing.”
She ran back into Rena’s room and Betsy followed. They opened the trunk again. Swiftly her mother stowed the articles filling the tray into the bottom compartment.
“You can have the tray for your papers,” she told Betsy happily. “Just wait until I get it fixed up!”
Mrs. Ray loved to fix things up around her house. And when she got started, Mr. Ray often said, she didn’t let any grass grow under her feet.
She called down the stairs to Rena.
“Will you come up, please? Bring some shelf paper with scalloped edging. And my old brown shawl. And a couple of pillows.”
“What are the shawl and pillows for?” asked Betsy, dancing about with excitement.
“They’re to make a little window seat out of the trunk when you’re not writing. When you feel like writing, you?
??ll put the pillows on the floor and sit on them and open your desk. It’s much nicer than an ordinary desk, because it’s a real theatrical trunk.”
Betsy thought so too.
Rena came up the stairs on a run. She was used to Mrs. Ray’s lightning ideas. They carried the trunk into the front bedroom and placed it beneath the window. Mrs. Ray started papering the tray.
“I’ll go out to get my things,” said Betsy joyfully.
She ran down the stairs and out the door and waded through golden leaves to the backyard maple.
When she reached the crotch where the cigar box was nailed, she looked out on a scene rivaling Little Eva’s Heaven. The maples of Hill Street were golden clouds; and the encircling hillside made a backdrop of more clouds, copper colored, wine-red and crimson. The sky was brightly blue.
It was a sight to make one catch one’s breath, but there was a chill in the air. Betsy brushed the dead leaves off the cigar box and opened it. A squirrel had already entered claim to possession. Six butternuts were there.
Hurriedly Betsy gathered up her belongings. Those tablets marked “Ray’s Shoe Store. Wear Queen Quality Shoes,” in which her novels were written. Two stubby pencils. An eraser. Some odds and ends of paper on which she had made verses. Leaving the Spanish lady to guard the butternuts, she wriggled down the tree.
She rushed eagerly into the kitchen and started up the stairs two at a time. Halfway up, she slowed her pace a little. It occurred to her to wonder whether her mother would notice the titles of her books.
Her mother did not read Betsy’s writing without express permission. And she did not allow anyone else to do so. She was very particular about it. But these titles were printed out so big and bold. She could hardly help seeing them. And if she did, she would know that Betsy had been reading Rena’s novels.
Betsy walked slowly with a suddenly flushed face into the front bedroom.
“It’s all ready,” her mother called cheerfully. Rena, Betsy saw, was gone. “I’ve finished papering it. Doesn’t it look pretty?”
It did.
“Here is a case for your pencils. I’ll ask Papa to bring you fresh ones, and an eraser, and a little ten-cent dictionary. Perhaps you would like to put in a book or two? The Bible and Longfellow?”
“Yes, I would,” said Betsy. Her mother noticed her changed voice. She looked up quickly and saw that Betsy was hugging her tablets secretively to her breast.
“You can put the tablets right into this corner,” Mrs. Ray said. “Don’t think I might ask to read them, dear. I won’t. Keith was just like you about that. He never wanted anyone to read what he was writing until he was through with it, and sometimes not then. Whenever you show anything you’ve written to Papa or me, we’re interested and proud. But never feel that you have to.”
Betsy threw the tablets roughly into the trunk.
“I don’t care if you read them.”
“But I don’t want to read them,” said her mother, looking troubled, “unless you want me to. The whole idea of this desk is to give you privacy. There is even a key to it, you know.”
“Read them,” said Betsy crossly. She turned away and scowled.
Mrs. Ray gathered up the tablets. The titles flashed past. Lady Gwendolyn’s Sin. The Tall Dark Stranger. Hardly More than a Child.
For quite a while she did not say a word. She did not open the books. She just stacked them into a pile which she shaped with her hands, thoughtfully.
Betsy stole a glance at her mother’s profile, fine and straight like George Washington’s. It did not look angry, but it looked serious, grave.
“I think,” said Mrs. Ray at last, “that Rena must have been sharing her dime novels with you.”
Betsy did not answer.
“Betsy, it’s a mistake for you to read that stuff. There’s no great harm in it, but if you’re going to be a writer you need to read good books. They train you to write, build up your mind. We have good books in the bookcase downstairs. Why don’t you read them?”
“I’ve read them all,” said Betsy.
“Of course,” said her mother. “I never thought of that.”
She took her hands away from the neat pile. The tray of the trunk, with its lining of scalloped blue paper looked fresh and inviting. Betsy felt ashamed.
“I’ll throw those stories away if you want me to,” she said.
“No,” answered her mother. “Not until you want to.” She still looked thoughtful. Then her face lighted up as it had when she thought of using Uncle Keith’s trunk for a desk.
“I have a plan,” she said. “A splendid plan. But I have to talk it over with Papa.”
“When will I know about it?”
“Tonight, maybe. Yes, I think you will know tonight before you go to bed.”
Smiling, Mrs. Ray jumped up and closed the trunk. She and Betsy arranged the brown shawl and the pillows.
“It’s almost like a cozy-corner,” Mrs. Ray said.
She and Betsy ran downstairs and told Julia and Margaret about the new desk. Betsy ran outdoors to find Tacy and Tib and tell them. She brought them in to see it, and they liked it very much.
She kept wondering what the plan was. And after supper she found out. She had been playing games out in the street with the neighborhood children. Julia and Katie didn’t play out any more. They were too grown up or too busy or had too many lessons or something. Margaret and the Rivers children played, and Paul and Freddie and Hobbie, and somehow the street seemed to belong to them even more than it did to Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.
When Margaret and Betsy went into the house, Julia was writing to Jerry. Their father and mother were reading beside the back-parlor lamp. Their father was reading a newspaper and their mother was reading a novel. It wasn’t a paper-backed novel like Rena’s. It was called When Knighthood Was in Flower.
Margaret climbed up on her father’s lap and he put down his newspaper. Mrs. Ray put down her novel. She smiled at her husband.
“Papa has that plan all worked out,” she said. “Tell her about it, Bob.”
Mr. Ray crossed his legs, hoisted Margaret to a comfortable position and began.
“Well, Betsy,” he said, “your mother tells me that you are going to use Uncle Keith’s trunk for a desk. That’s fine. You need a desk. I’ve often noticed how much you like to write. The way you eat up those advertising tablets from the store! I never saw anything like it. I can’t understand it though. I never write anything but checks myself.”
“Bob!” said Mrs. Ray. “You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry.”
“Cry, eh?” said Mr. Ray, grinning. “In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from her family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you’re going to be a writer.”
Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed.
“But if you’re going to be a writer,” he went on, “you’ve got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics. And fortunately … that’s what I’m driving at … Deep Valley has a new Carnegie Library, almost ready to open. White marble building, sunny, spick and span, just full of books.”
“I know,” Betsy said.
“That library,” her father continued, “is going to be just what you need. And your mother and I want you to get acquainted with it. Of course it’s way downtown, but you’re old enough now to go downtown alone. Julia goes down to her music lessons, since the Williamses moved away, and this is just as important.”
He shifted his position, and his hand went into his pocket.
“As I understand it,” he said, “you can keep a book two weeks. So, after the library opens, why don’t you start going down … every other Saturday, say … and get some books? And don’t hurry home. Stay a while. Browse around among the books. Every time you go, you can take fifteen cents.” He gave her two coins. “At noon go over to Bierbauer’s Baker
y for a sandwich and milk and ice cream. Would you like that?”
“Oh, Papa!” said Betsy. She could hardly speak.
She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.
“I’d like it,” she said in a choked voice. “I’d like it a lot.”
Julia was as happy as Betsy was, almost. One nice thing about Julia was that she rejoiced in other people’s luck.
“It’s wonderful plan, Papa,” she cried. “I’ve thought for ages that Betsy was going to be a writer.”
“I thought Betsy learned to write a long time ago,” said Margaret, staring out of her new English bob.
Everyone laughed, and Mrs. Ray explained to Margaret what kind of writer Betsy might come to be.
Betsy was so full of joy that she had to be alone. She ran upstairs to her bedroom and sat down on Uncle Keith’s trunk. Behind Tacy’s house the sun had set. A wind had sprung up and the trees, their color dimmed, moved under a brooding sky. All the stories she had told Tacy and Tib seemed to be dancing in those trees, along with all the stories she planned to write some day and all the stories she would read at the library. Good stories. Great stories. The classics. Not like Rena’s novels.
She pulled off the pillows and shawl and opened her desk. She took out the pile of little tablets and ran with them down to the kitchen and lifted the lid of the stove and shoved them in. Then she walked into the back parlor, dusting off her hands.
“Papa,” she said, “will you bring me some more tablets? Quite a lot of them, please.”
7
A Trip to the Library
ARLY IN NOVEMBER Betsy made her first expedition to the library. It was a windy day. Gray clouds like battleships moved across a purplish sea of sky. It looked like snow, Mrs. Ray remarked as she and Julia stood on the front porch seeing Betsy off. She looked a little doubtfully at Betsy’s Sunday hat, a flowered brim that left her ears perilously exposed.
“Oughtn’t you to wear your hood, Betsy?”