“See here! What’s up?” he asked.
Betsy was crying and Julia was waving torn paper. Katie was boxing Tacy’s ears, and Tib, very red in the face, was jumping up and down.
Mr. Ray wound the lines around the whip. He got out of the buggy and Old Mag found her own way up the little driveway that led to her barn.
Gripping Julia in one hand and Betsy in the other, Mr. Ray asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Queen! Queen! Queen!” was all he could make out of their jumbled answers.
“Come along, all of you,” he said; and, followed by the other children, he and Julia and Betsy went up to the front porch. He sat down there and loosened his collar. Mrs. Ray brought him some ice water.
“It’s the most awful misunderstanding,” she said.
“I’ll clear it up,” said Mr. Ray and he took a long drink of the ice water. “Now,” he said. “What’s it all about?”
Both sides told their stories.
Julia spoke last and she was near to weeping.
“Ordinarily,” she said, “Katie and I would give in. We always do. But we’ve asked Dorothy and some other girls. What would they think? And we’ve spent all our money for crepe paper.”
“Which maybe is spoiled,” muttered Katie.
Betsy could see from her father’s expression that this was a telling point.
“Well, Tacy and Tib and I can’t give in,” she wailed. “We’ve been planning this since May seventeenth.”
“May seventeenth?” asked Mr. Ray. “Why May seventeenth?”
“It just was May seventeenth,” Betsy replied.
“Yes it was, Mr. Ray,” Tacy and Tib added.
That was a good point too, remembering the day.
Mr. Ray thought for a long time. Mrs. Ray stood in the doorway looking worried, and there was a smell of biscuits baking. (For shortcake, probably.)
“It seems clear,” said Mr. Ray at last, “that each side thinks his side is right.”
Mrs. Ray nodded.
“And certainly,” he continued, “there must be just one queen. Rival queens would never do.”
He paused while the children stood in silence and Mrs. Ray waited in the doorway.
“I have it,” he said. “We’ll settle this in the good old American way.”
“How?” all the children asked together.
“By the vote. By the ballot,” answered Mr. Ray.
“But Papa,” said Julia. “That wouldn’t do. Katie and I would vote for me, and Betsy and Tacy and Tib would vote for Tib.”
“Let your friends vote,” answered Mr. Ray. “Let the neighborhood vote.”
He warmed to his idea.
“Take two sheets of foolscap,” he went on, while sniffs lessened and eyes brightened. “At the top of one write, ‘We, the undersigned, want Tib Muller for queen.’ And at the top of the other one write, ‘We, the undersigned, want Julia Ray for queen.’ Then tomorrow morning go out after votes. Take your papers up and down Hill Street. And may the best man win!”
It was a wonderful idea.
“Of course,” said Mr. Ray, “you must be good sports. You must all agree to abide by the result of the vote. If Tib wins, Julia and Katie must pitch in and make a success of her coronation. And if Julia wins, Betsy and Tacy and Tib must be her loyal subjects. All right?” he asked.
“All right,” everyone agreed.
“It’s settled then,” said Mr. Ray. He got to his feet. “Old Mag wants her supper and I do too.”
“You’re a perfect Solomon,” said Mrs. Ray.
Katie and Tacy ran across the street and Tib skipped down Hill Street and home. Julia and Betsy and Margaret went into the house for supper, and there was strawberry shortcake.
At bedtime Mrs. Ray suggested to Betsy that she tell Julia she was sorry she had torn the crepe paper. Betsy told her, and Julia said it was perfectly all right.
Everyone thought that the quarrel was over. But it wasn’t, somehow.
7
Out for Votes
ON THE RAYS’ hitching block next morning Betsy, Tacy, and Tib made out their petition. They printed at the top of a piece of foolscap:
“We, the undersigned, want Tib Muller for queen.” Across the street, on the Kellys’ hitching block, Julia and Katie were printing on a sheet of foolscap too. Margaret and the Rivers children ran from group to group. Paul waited on the Kellys’ porch with the dinner bell in his hand.
Katie called across the street, “Are families allowed to sign?”
“No! No!” whispered Tacy, nudging Betsy to remind her that Julia and Katie were on the Kelly side of the street; they could get to the Kelly house first and there were lots of people in the Kelly family.
“No,” called Betsy. “Of course not.” She and Tacy and Tib had finished. They jumped to their feet.
“No fair starting ’til the signal!” warned Julia. It had been agreed in advance that no one was to begin until Paul rang the dinner bell.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib rocked impatiently on their toes; Julia and Katie jumped up.
“Ready?” cried Paul. “One, two, three, go!”
He rang the bell vigorously, and the race for votes was on.
With excited whoops both sides started running down the sloping sun-dappled street. Julia and Katie ran on the Kellys’ side; Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, on the Rays’ side.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib paused to sign up the oldest Rivers child. She hadn’t started to school yet but she could print her name. They ran into the Riverses’ house and Mrs. Rivers signed. They ran down the terrace to the next house.
In that house lived a deaf and dumb family. That is, the father and mother were deaf and dumb. The baby cried as loudly as any other baby. Their name was Hunt. Mrs. Hunt had taught Betsy and Tacy the alphabet in sign language. So they asked her in sign language to vote for Tib for queen. They showed her the petition too, and pointed to Tib and said, “Vote!” Mrs. Hunt smiled and wrote her name.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib bounded down the terrace to the Williamses’ blue frame house. They called there sometimes to borrow the Horatio Alger books. These belonged to Ben who walked home from school with Julia. His sister, Miss Williams, was Julia’s music teacher.
Ben said that he was too busy to vote. He looked cross. Miss Williams wouldn’t sign either. She exclaimed, “Why, Julia has been planning for weeks on being the queen!” Mrs. Williams signed though, and Grandpa Williams signed. So they came out even.
Across the street Julia and Katie could be seen at Mrs. Benson’s door.
“She won’t sign, I’ll bet. She’ll wait for us,” said Tacy as she and Betsy and Tib leaped down another terrace to the Grangers’ house.
This was a neat light tan house with brown trimmings. No children lived there; the Granger daughters were grown-up. But Betsy and Tacy knew the house well, for here they often borrowed Little Women. They had borrowed it almost to tatters.
Mrs. Granger signed and so did the woman in the house below. She had two small children … not old enough to print their names.
In the last house of the block lived a family with many children. All of them signed.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib paused, panting and triumphant. Julia and Katie emerged from the last house in the block on their side and ran into the vacant lot which led to Pleasant Street.
Here both parties sighted the familiar stocky figure of Mr. Goode, the postman.
Mr. Goode had been bringing the mail to Hill Street for years. He was the children’s friend. Julia and Katie, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib ran toward him as though running for a prize. They all fell upon him at once.
Mr. Goode read both petitions.
“I’ll sign both or none,” he said. So they let him sign both. But when he had passed on up Hill Street they decided not to let anyone else sign both petitions.
“It would mix things up,” Katie explained. “We wouldn’t know at the end who had won.”
Betsy and Tacy and Tib agreed.
“Ta, ta,” said
Julia and Katie, and they cut through the vacant lot to Pleasant Street. One of their best friends lived on Pleasant Street. She was the Dorothy whom they had included in their plans for a queen celebration. Her father and mother played with Betsy’s father and mother in the High Fly Whist Club.
Julia and Katie were certainly heading for her house.
“Let’s fool them,” said Betsy. “Let’s us go to Pleasant Street too. We’ll go the other way.”
So they raced back up Hill Street and went to Pleasant Street by the road which led down the Big Hill past Tacy’s house. At that corner lived the little girl named Alice. She was an earnest little girl with fat yellow braids.
“I’ll come along and help,” she said.
“Come along,” said Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.
They started down Pleasant Street with Alice.
And, just as they had expected, they found Julia and Katie at Dorothy’s door.
“Ya, ya! Fooled you!” yelled Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.
“Copycats!” yelled Julia and Katie.
“Copycats!” echoed Dorothy. She was one of the little girls’ favorite big girls, with brown curls and eyes and a very sweet voice. But she was their enemy now.
They were all having fun, though.
“How many votes have you got?” yelled Betsy.
“Show us your list and we’ll show you ours,” yelled Julia and Katie.
They met in the middle of the road and compared lists. Julia had fifteen votes for queen, but Tib had sixteen.
“It’s certainly close,” said Alice.
The two parties separated and ran from door to door.
They both rushed at the baker’s boy when they saw him coming out of a house with his tray full of jelly rolls and doughnuts. He was a fat boy with red cheeks; they knew him well.
Like the postman he wanted to sign both lists. But they wouldn’t allow it.
He looked from Julia with her loose brown hair on her shoulders to Tib with her crown of yellow curls.
“By golly!” he said. “This is fierce!”
After a moment he signed Julia’s list.
“But I’ll give you a doughnut,” he said to Tib.
She divided it with Betsy, Tacy, and Alice.
The two parties made rushes also at the grocer’s boy, the butcher’s boy, the iceman, and the milkman. Up and down Pleasant Street they went. They were amazed when the whistles blew loudly for noon. They ran home in great good humor and Julia and Betsy told their adventures at the dinner table.
Mr. Ray winked at Mrs. Ray.
“See!” his wink seemed to say, “I straightened everything out!”
“You must be almost ready to stop and count votes,” he said.
“Oh no, Papa!” cried Betsy.
“But you must have called on everyone you know?”
“Why, Papa!” said Julia. “We haven’t been to School Street yet. Some of my best friends live on School Street.”
“Well, I don’t want you to go too far away,” said Mrs. Ray. “How far do you think they should be allowed to go, Bob?”
“Not beyond Lincoln Park,” said Mr. Ray.
Lincoln Park was a pie-shaped wedge of lawn with a giant elm tree and a fountain on it. Hill Street turned into Broad Street there. It was the end of the neighborhood.
“Lincoln Park, then,” said Mrs. Ray. “But before you start out, I want you to wash and wipe the dishes. I have to frost the cake I’m sending to the Ice Cream Social.”
Julia’s eyes widened.
“Where is the Social, Mamma?”
“It’s on the Humphreys’ lawn,” said Mrs. Ray. “They’re raising money for the Ladies Aid.”
She had made a layer cake with lemon filling, and she frosted it with thick white frosting while Julia and Betsy washed the dishes. By the time they were finished, Katie and Tacy and Tib were yoo-hooing from the hitching block.
The two parties started out again.
Unlike Julia and Katie, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib had no friends on School Street, but they went there just the same. They wanted to keep Julia and Katie in sight. They could see them, on the opposite side of the street, running busily from house to house.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib went from house to house too. And this was a different business from calling at the houses on Hill Street. It was fascinating, delicious, to knock at the doors of houses whose outsides they had known for years but whose insides were unknown and mysterious.
There was the red brick house with limestone trimmings where they had always imagined very wealthy people lived; there was the house with pebbles set in plaster above the door; the house with an iron deer on the lawn; the house where bleeding hearts grew in the spring.
Some of these houses they had always loved; some they had almost feared. They had never expected such luck as to see inside them all. Opening doors gave glimpses of strange faces, of banisters leading mysteriously upstairs, of an organ, of a hired girl in a cap.
A few ladies slammed doors or said they were busy, but most of them signed the paper, voting for Tib. One told the children to wait and brought cookies. Another, a plump young woman, said she had just made fudge; she gave them some.
“I like going out for votes,” said Tib, happily eating her fudge.
They were enjoying themselves so much that they did not notice when Julia and Katie dropped out of sight. But all at once they realized that their rivals were nowhere to be seen.
“They’ve cut through lots somewhere,” said Betsy.
“They’ve lost us on purpose, I’ll bet,” Tacy said. “Where do you suppose they’ve gone?”
“I don’t know,” said Betsy. “But I think we’d better go around this corner and keep on as far as Lincoln Park.”
That was what they did. But now the ladies in the houses at which they called said that Julia and Katie had been there.
“May we sign your list too?” they asked.
“No, ma’am. We have an agreement.”
They were growing warm. They were a little tired too, and more than a little dirty.
Lincoln Park came into sight, cool and green under its elm, the waters of its fountain sparkling.
“Let’s stop and rest before we go home,” said Betsy.
“Look there!” Tib cried. “What’s going on at the Humphreys’ house?”
“It must be a wedding or a funeral,” said Tacy.
Betsy remembered.
“It’s the Ice Cream Social. They’re raising money for the Ladies Aid. Mamma baked a cake for them.”
They stared at the Humphreys’ house, a large yellow stone house that overlooked the Park. The road before it was crowded with carriages and the lawn was crowded with tables. Ladies in light summer dresses trailed over the grass.
“It looks pretty,” said Betsy.
“I wish we had money to buy some ice cream,” said Tacy.
It was Tib this time who had an idea.
“We could get votes there,” she said. “Lots and lots of votes. Enough to win.”
Betsy and Tacy paid her idea the tribute of enraptured silence.
“Just pass the paper around,” Tib explained, thinking that they did not understand.
“Tib!” cried Betsy then.“That’s a wonderful plan!”
“Julia and Katie will be frantic,” Tacy cried.
“You’re the one to do it, Tib,” said Betsy. “You’re so little and cute.”
“I’m dirty though,” said Tib. And she certainly was. There was chocolate on her face, chocolate on her hands, and chocolate on the front of her dress.
“We’ll go over to the Park,” said Betsy, “and you can wash up in the fountain.”
They ran across the street to Lincoln Park, and Tib washed her face and hands in the fountain. Betsy and Tacy picked a bouquet of clovers and pinned it over the chocolate spot on the front of her dress.
“Now,” they said. “You look fine.”
Tib took the paper and pencil and ran lightly across to the Social.
She was pleased to be going. People made a fuss over Tib because she was little and cute. She wasn’t conceited about it but she liked it. She was certain now, and so were Betsy and Tacy, that she would come back with the signature of every single person at the Social.
Betsy and Tacy lay down beneath the elm. They stretched their tired bodies on the turf and gazed into the remote green branches. They did not speak, but they shared a great content.
This was shattered almost immediately and most unexpectedly by Tib’s return. She arrived at a run, very red of face.
“You come with me!” she said. “Just come with me!”
Betsy and Tacy jumped to their feet and followed her back across the street.
“Look there!” said Tib, pointing to the Humphreys’ lawn.
They followed her indignant finger.
A nearby table was covered with a snowy cloth. There was a big bouquet of roses in the center. Sitting at the table looking very grown-up, eating ice cream and helping themselves freely to cake, were Julia and Katie.
Their paper and pencil lay on the table between them.
Catching sight of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, Julia lifted the paper and waved it.
“Don’t bother to come in,” she said. “We’ve got all the names.”
“And Mrs. Humphreys just insisted,” said Katie, “that we have some ice cream.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. They rushed furiously away.
They did not return to the Park. That cool greenness did not suit their rising temper. They began the long hot plod up Hill Street, raging.
“That’s why they ducked us.”
“I knew they were trying to.”
“Julia asked Mamma this noon where the Social was going to be held.”
“She was planning it then.”
“It’s the meanest thing I ever heard of.”
“Of course,” said Tib, “we were going to do the same thing ourselves.”
Betsy and Tacy closed their ears to that remark. (It was just like Tib to make it.)
“They must have gotten a hundred names,” said Betsy.
“We can never, never, never catch up.”
“Gee whiz! Gee whitakers! We’ve got to.”