it away. Love. Your sincere friend. Tacy.”
Betsy jumped up, her eyes sparkling. Shep sprang up, too, and barked, sending echoes over the fields.
“Shep! What is it? What can it be?”
Shep barked as though guessing a bone.
A Peter Thompson suit? thought Betsy, striding up the road. But that would not be not nice for Tacy. A bike? Her father had suggested buying her a bike, for it was a long walk from Hill Street to the High School which Betsy and Tacy would enter this fall. But Tacy didn’t have a bike, and the town, he had said, would fall down with surprise if Betsy and Tacy stopped going to school together. What could it be? Betsy hurried into the house to get Mrs. Taggart’s guess.
Mrs. Taggart promptly guessed a baby, and Betsy laughingly told her that once she had gone to visit on a farm and had come home to find a baby sister. But that wouldn’t happen now. She was, she explained complacently, old enough to be told. Besides, Tacy liked babies. What could possibly be nice for Betsy that Tacy would not like?
She puzzled while she shelled peas and at dinner Mr. Taggart joined affably in the guessing. But when Betsy started to eat, the misery came back. The surprise seemed suddenly unimportant and it was nightmarish again that she, Betsy, was out here alone among strangers. She started the now familiar business of pushing food around her plate.
“I never knew a growing girl to take so little interest in her victuals,” Mrs. Taggart said when Betsy declared that she really didn’t have room for fresh peach pie.
Misery kept her company through the dragging afternoon. Then there was supper to be eaten, harder even than dinner. When the dishes were washed Betsy went out to sit on the back fence and watch the sunset. She had always liked sunsets, and tonight the west was turquoise blue, with banked clouds turning from peach color to pink. But shortly the clouds became grey, the sky dark. The orchard trees moved slowly in an imperceptible breeze, and the crickets began.
The worst thing about farm evenings was the crickets. The cows were bad enough with their dreary lowing, and the birds flying urgently homeward at nightfall when Betsy could not fly home to Hill Street. But those crickets!
“I must, I must get to feeling better before Mamma ’phones,” Betsy thought, jumping off the fence.
Winking rapidly, she walked toward the house. The lamps were not yet lighted; Mrs. Taggart was sitting in the dooryard for coolness while Mr. Taggart finished his chores. And just as Betsy came up the telephone bell inside the kitchen rang. Two long and three short rings, the Taggarts’ call.
“It’s sure to be for you, Betsy,” Mrs. Taggart said. “Make your mamma tell you what that secret is.”
“I’ll certainly try,” Betsy answered merrily. She put the receiver to her ear.
“Hello. Bettina?” Julia always called her Bettina. “How’re you?”
“Dandy,” said Betsy. “I’m having a dandy time.”
“Not too dandy, I hope,” Julia answered, and laughed excitedly. “I mean…there’s a wonderful surprise here. Papa and Mamma want to know if you’d just as soon hurry up your visit.”
“Hurry up…my visit?”
“And come home ahead of time…tomorrow.”
Betsy clung to the receiver as though holding fast to Julia’s words.
“Why, all right,” she said slowly, after a pause. “Of course, I hate like the dickens to leave.”
“But this surprise won’t keep,” said Julia. “That is, you might hear about it. You might read it in the paper.”
“In the paper?”
Julia laughed out loud.
“I’d better ring off, or I’ll give it away. Mamma’s too busy to talk, if you’re coming home tomorrow.”
“I’ll come,” Betsy said. “Wait. I’ll find out what time.” Holding the receiver, she spoke to Mrs. Taggart.
“Why, Mr. Simmons can take you along to Butternut Center tomorrow,” she said. “There’s a train at two-three. Tell your mamma we hope you’ll come again.”
“I’d love to come again,” Betsy cried.
When she rang off the kitchen seemed transformed. Mrs. Taggart had lighted the lamps, and the glow was as cozy as home lamplight. Betsy played with Shep, and ate the piece of pie she had spurned at dinner, said goodnight gaily and ran gaily upstairs to the prim little room that had once been Mattie’s.
Whistling to herself she undressed and put on her long-sleeved cambric night gown. Smilingly, she washed in the flowered bowl, and brushed her teeth, and rubbed cream into her face, and wound her hair on eight kid rollers. Briskly, she lifted off the pillow shams…one said Good Night, and one said Good Morning…and folded back the patchwork quilt and blew out the lamp. After she had raced through her prayers, she climbed into bed and lay there peacefully.
The room still held the heat of the day, but the air coming through the screened windows was cool. Outside the crickets were singing.
“Yes, I must come here again sometime,” thought Betsy happily, listening to their tune.
2
Butternut Center
BETSY’S FIRST THOUGHT on awakening was that she was going home. She lay in bed and thought about Hill Street with adoration.
It took its name from the fact that it ended in a hill. Her house and Tacy’s, across the street, were the last two houses in the town. The rolling, tree-covered slopes seemed but an extension of the lawns surrounding the white rambling Kelly house and the yellow Ray cottage.
This was growing altogether too small. When they kept a hired girl, Julia, Betsy and Margaret had to share one bedroom. The house had almost none of the modern improvements, Betsy had heard her mother remark disparagingly. Never mind, Betsy loved it, from the butternut tree standing like a sentinel in front, to Old Mag’s barn behind the garden, not forgetting the lilac bush by the side kitchen door and the backyard maple.
She thought about Hill Street through breakfast and farewells. But homeward bound beside Mr. Simmons, she began to give a little attention to the surprise. She told him about it, they discussed it pro and con while the wagon rolled from mailbox to mailbox, between swaying cornfields where red-winged blackbirds foraged. By the time they reached Butternut Center Mr. Simmons was quite worked up about the surprise.
“I’ll drop you a card to tell you what it is,” Betsy promised at the depot.
Tall and slim in her blue sailor suit, with her flat hat and spreading hairbow, she felt very much the young lady. Butternut Center wasn’t exactly Paris, but it was adventurous to be there alone. She went into the small red depot and asked the agent whether she might leave her valise; he said, “Sure.” She walked along the platform, past wagons full of milk cans, found a shady spot and ate the lunch Mrs. Taggart had put up. It was magnificent; ham sandwiches, dill pickles, hard-boiled eggs, a chunk of layer cake and cookies. She ate looking off at the fields, her back to Butternut Center, feeling that lunch out of doors, out of a box, was slightly undignified. Her lunch eaten, however, and the box disposed of, she set out to see the town.
There wasn’t much of it. Except for a white church and burying ground out on the prairie, it lay along a single road. This was dusty now, but its ruts and gulches showed how rich its mud would be at other seasons. It led in one direction to the grain elevator, in the other past a handful of houses to the general store. The store reminded her that in the excitement of her unexpected return, she had forgotten to buy presents. No Ray ever came home from a trip without bringing presents for the rest.
“I’d like to get something for Tacy, too,” Betsy thought, hurrying toward the store.
Willard’s Emporium, said the sign above the door. It was one of those stores, perfect for her purpose, where everything under the sun was for sale. A single glance revealed kitchen stoves, buggy whips, corset covers and crackers. Betsy browsed happily along the overflowing counters until a boy sitting in a corner, eating an apple and reading a book, threw away the apple and came forward.
She was struck by the way he walked, with a slight challenging s
wing. He had very light hair brushed back in a pompadour, blue eyes under thick light brows and healthy red lips with the lower one pushed out as though seeming to dare the world to knock the chip off his shoulder. It was a sturdy well-built shoulder, in a faded blue cotton shirt. He hardly looked at her, but keeping his finger in the partly closed book…it was, she noticed, The Three Musketeers…asked what he could do for her in a tone that implied he hoped she would answer, “Nothing. I’m just looking.”
“Nothing, thanks. I’m just looking,” said Betsy obligingly. Then, realizing that she really had to buy five presents even though it meant delaying D’Artagnan’s greatest feat she added, “That is, I can look around a few minutes if you’re in an exciting place.”
The boy grinned. “Oh, I’ve read it six times. Swell book! What are you looking for?”
“Presents. Five of them.” She explained, talking very fast, that no Ray ever came home from a visit without bringing presents. “It’s an old family custom,” she said.
“Hallelujah!” he exclaimed, shutting the book. “That’ll be fun, picking out five presents. I hope you have a brother. There’s a corking jack-knife here.”
“Not a sign of a brother,” Betsy answered. “Just two sisters. And Margaret’s so young she’d cut herself on a jack-knife, and Julia wouldn’t care for one. She’s sixteen.”
“What’s Julia interested in?” he asked.
“Oh, music and boys.”
Betsy hadn’t intended to be funny, and when the boy laughed, she blushed.
“Well,” he said. “We’ve got a mouth organ.”
“But she likes classical music. A mouth organ might do for Tacy, though.”
“Who’s Tacy?”
“My best friend. I want to take her something, too, if I’ve got money enough.”
“How much do you have?” he asked. He put The Three Musketeers aside completely and hoisted himself to a counter, smiling. Betsy sat down on a barrel and opened her pocketbook.
“Three dollars.”
“A ticket to Deep Valley is only forty cents.”
“But I have to take the hack home. That costs a quarter.”
“Can’t you walk?”
“In our family,” said Betsy, “when we come home on the train, we take the hack.”
Again he burst into laughter.
“You have a lot of customs in your family. Haven’t you?” he asked.
Pleased and pink, she tried to make it clear. “The hack is part of the fun of the trip.”
“All right. Forty plus twenty-five, that’s sixty-five. So you have two dollars and thirty-five cents to spend for presents.”
“But I want to buy some things on the train. Caramels, maybe, and a magazine. It’s…”
“I know, I know,” he interrupted. “It’s one of those old family customs. You never travel without caramels.”
Betsy’s blushes sank to the V of her sailor suit.
“We’ll give you a quarter for caramels, then, and get on with the presents. Would your father like a moustache cup?”
“My father,” said Betsy, “hasn’t a moustache any more, and moustache cups are out of style.” She looked around the store. “He likes cheese,” she said, nodding toward a row of giant cheeses.
“Fine. Cheese for your father. Sharp or mild?”
“Sharp.”
“If you brought home mild cheese, he wouldn’t let you in, I’ll bet.”
“He’d use it for the mousetrap.”
They joked like old friends, choosing the presents. For her father he cut a wedge of cheese so sharp that Betsy could smell it even after it was wrapped. For her mother, they found a glass butter dish. Tacy got the mouth organ; Julia, side combs decorated with rhinestones. They hadn’t found a present for Margaret when they heard the hooting whistle of the train.
“You don’t need to rush,” he said. “They take on all the milk cans.”
But in spite of this reassurance, Betsy felt hurried. She had to pick up her valise. She decided quickly on doll dishes for Margaret. Her purchases came to a dollar and sixty cents.
“Fifty cents for the pig bank,” said the boy. “Well, back to The Three Musketeers.”
Betsy hesitated, trying to think what to say. She had no brothers, and she hadn’t started going around with boys. Julia would have known how to convey to this one that she liked him and appreciated his help. In fact, thought Betsy enviously, Julia would have him taking the next train to Deep Valley to call. But Betsy didn’t know how to do it.
Should she tell him that her name was Betsy? He knew it was Ray. Should she ask him to come up to Hill Street when he came to Deep Valley? Perhaps she ought to mention that she was starting high school this fall? That would make him understand that she was old enough to have callers. Before she could decide anything, the train whistled again.
The boy had picked up The Three Musketeers. He was acting almost as though he regretted having been so friendly. Betsy blurted out:
“What’s your name?”
“Joe Willard.”
“Willard’s Emporium?”
“I’m just a poor relation.”
“Well, thank you,” Betsy said. “Thank you a lot.”
It wasn’t satisfactory, but it was the best she could manage. At least he smiled again.
“Don’t eat the cheese before you get home,” he said.
The brakeman ushered her into the day coach, and she sat down in a red plush seat. All the passengers seemed to be eating, bananas chiefly, and an endless line of hot, restless children trotted to and from the water fountain.
Betsy bought a box of Cracker Jack. She bought a box of caramels and a copy of The Ladies’ Home Journal.
“Like traveling?” asked the train boy.
“Love it,” she answered.
“I’d like to travel all over the world,” she thought, munching Cracker Jack. “I think I’d like Paris especially. I think I just belong in Paris.”
Paris reminded her of The Three Musketeers, and that brought Joe Willard back into her thoughts.
“He’s handsomer than Herbert Humphreys,” she decided. “Tacy’ll never believe it though.”
The speed of the train swallowed up the prairie. In no time at all the river came into sight. They passed a waterfall she recognized; then the train descended along the side of a bluff.
The brakeman called, “Deep Valley!” and at once the car was in confusion. Hats were pinned on; small bonnets tied; all traces of banana wiped away. Valises and suit cases were dragged down from the rack. The train slowed to a stop.
Holding her valise in one hand and the package from Willard’s Emporium in the other, Betsy found Mr. Thumbler’s hack.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Thumbler,” she said. “333 Hill Street, please.” As though he didn’t know where the Ray family lived! The hack rolled up Front Street, past her father’s shoe store. It crossed to Broad Street and rolled past Lincoln Park, and began to climb.
Betsy tried to sit back in careless calm, but a smile as bright as her hair ribbon spread across her face. Neighbors darted out to see who was coming in the hack. Children waved, and dogs barked. It was a triumphal return. And not only was she back on her beloved Hill Street…the surprise was still ahead.
“Now for the surprise!” thought Betsy, trying not to bounce.
3
The Surprise
BETSY DIDN’T KNOW exactly what she had expected, but certainly not to find everything at home going forward just as usual on a summer afternoon. Margaret was playing with her dolls on the front porch. Julia was at the piano, vocalizing.
“Ni-po-tu-la-he-” Her voice floated out the window as the hack stopped in front of the yellow cottage.
Betsy dug twenty-five cents from her pocket book.
“Thank you, Mr. Thumbler,” she said politely, and thanked him again with downright gratitude when he carried her valise up the steps, just as though she were grown up.
Margaret gave a welcoming cry, and Julia rushed
out, closely followed by Mrs. Ray in a dressing sacque with her curly red hair falling on her shoulders. She had just been changing into an afternoon dress.
Mrs. Ray was tall and slim; younger and gayer, Betsy was pleasantly aware, than most mothers. She did not seem much older than Julia who was old for sixteen.
None of the Ray girls looked like their mother. They all had their father’s dark hair. But Julia’s hair was wavy, not straight like Betsy’s. It waved in a high pompadour above a truly beautiful face…arched brows, violet eyes, classic nose, even teeth and a delicate pink and white skin like the one Betsy cherished.
Much to her chagrin…for she planned to be an opera singer, and longed to be tall and queenly…Julia was small. She had a tiny waist, dainty hands and feet, and an air of complete poise. Julia, Betsy often heard, had never had an awkward age. Betsy never heard this said about herself and suspected strongly that she was in the midst of one, but she admired Julia without resentment. During the last year all big-sister, little-sister friction had miraculously melted away.
Margaret was eight years old, and not at all the sort of little girl that either of her sisters had been. She did not have Julia’s diamond-bright precocity nor Betsy’s gregariousness. Betsy at eight had been habitually surrounded by children, cheerfully smudged and disheveled if five minutes away from the wash bowl. Margaret played sedately alone or with one child at a time, and her brown English bob was always glossy, her starched dresses immaculate. She had large black-lashed blue eyes, and a grave expression. She held herself erect just as Mr. Ray did. It was amusing to see the pair, one so big and one so little, but both with squared shoulders, walking hand in hand. And Hill Street saw this often.
“She’s my boy,” Mr. Ray used to joke. “All the boy I’ve got.”
She came down the steps now with her usual flawless dignity but her small face was covered with smiles. She hugged and kissed Betsy, and so did Julia, and so did Mrs. Ray.
When these greetings were over Betsy waited to hear some word of the surprise, but none was spoken. They all trooped into Mrs. Ray’s room so that she could finish dressing while Betsy told the story of her visit.