That afternoon after school they all went up on the Big Hill hunting for violets. It was one of those April days on which it seemed that summer had already come, although the ground was still muddy and brown. The sun was shining so warmly that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib pulled off their stocking caps and unbuttoned their coats. Birds in the bare trees were singing with all their might, and Betsy, Tacy, and Tib sang too as they climbed the Big Hill.
They sang to the tune of “Mine eyes have seen the glory,” but they made up the words themselves:
“Oh, Betsy’s ten tomorrow,
And then all of us are ten,
We will all grow up tomorrow,
We will all be ladies then…”
They marched in a row and sang.
The Ekstroms, whose white house stood at the top of the hill, were out making a garden. It made them laugh to see Betsy, Tacy, and Tib marching along and singing. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib liked to make the Ekstroms laugh. They marched straighter and sang louder than ever.
Marching and singing, they turned to the right and went through the twin row of beeches which they called their Secret Lane, and past the foundations of that house which had never been finished which they called the Mystery House. Still marching and singing, they went down through a fold of the hills and up again. But now they had sung until they were hoarse, and they burst out laughing and fell down on top of each other.
When they were rested Tib stood up.
“We’d better get those violets,” she said.
But Tacy cried out, “Look! We’ve come farther than we ever came before.”
Sure enough, they stood on a part of the hill which was new to them. Climbing a little higher, they left the trees behind and came out on a high rocky ridge. Below, spread out in the sunlight, was a strange wide beautiful valley. In the center were one big brick house and a row of tiny houses.
“That looks like Little Syria,” said Tib.
“It can’t be!” cried Betsy and Tacy together, for Little Syria was a place they went to with their fathers and mothers when out buggy riding on a summer evening. It was not a place one saw when one went walking.
Yet this was certainly Little Syria.
“That big brick house is the Meecham Mansion,” Tib said.
It certainly was.
Mr. Meecham had built it many years before, according to the story which Betsy and Tacy and Tib had often heard their fathers tell. He had come from the East and had bought all the land in this valley, calling it Meecham’s Addition. He had tried to sell lots there, but none of his American neighbors had wished to live so far from the center of town. At last he had sold his lots to a colony of Syrians, strange dark people who spoke broken English and came to Hill Street sometimes peddling garden stuff and laces and embroidered cloths.
Angry and disappointed, Mr. Meecham lived on in his mansion among the humble houses of the Syrians. So did his wife until she died. And so did his middle-aged daughter. He was a tall old man with a flowing white beard and a proud scornful bearing. His team of white horses was the finest in the county; and it was driven by a coachman. Mr. Meecham and his daughter came to town in style, when they came, which was not often.
Little Syria belonged to Deep Valley but it seemed as foreign as though it were across the ocean.
And now here it lay, at the very feet of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.
The three of them stared down at it, and Betsy was thinking hard.
“Well, I’m surprised!” said Tacy. “I never knew we could walk to Little Syria.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Betsy.
“You’re not?” asked Tacy.
“No,” said Betsy. “Remember I’ll be ten tomorrow. It’s the sort of thing we’ll be doing often from now on.”
“Going to other towns?” asked Tacy.
“Yes. Little Syria. Minneapolis. Chicago. New York.”
“I’d love to go to New York and see the Flatiron Building,” said Tacy.
Tib looked puzzled.
“But Little Syria,” she said, “is just over our own hill. We didn’t know that it was. But it is.”
“Well, we certainly didn’t find it out until today,” said Betsy.
“We certainly never walked to it before,” said Tacy.
“That’s right,” admitted Tib.
They gazed down on Little Syria in the center of the broad calm valley. Mr. Meecham’s Mansion with the little houses in a row looked like a hen followed by chicks.
“Shall we go down?” asked Tib, dancing about. Tib liked to do things instead of talking about them.
It was a daring suggestion. There were tales of the Syrians fighting one another with knives. A man called Old Bushara had once chased a boy with a knife. The boy was in their grade at school.
“Remember Sam and Old Bushara?” Tacy asked now.
“Sam’s a horrid boy,” said Tib. “He yelled ‘dago’ at Old Bushara. He yells that at all the Syrians and it’s not a nice thing to do. Shall we go down?” she persisted, hopping from foot to foot.
Betsy looked at Tacy.
“Not today,” she said. “It’s too late. But some day we’ll go.”
They walked back slowly, picking flowers as they went. They didn’t find many violets, but they found bloodroots, and Dutchman’s breeches, and hepaticas, rising from the damp brown mat which carpeted the ground. They didn’t march or sing going home. When they passed the Ekstroms’ house, the Ekstroms, who were making a bonfire now, called out to ask where the parade was.
“What parade?” asked Betsy. “Oh, that! We won’t be parading much more, I expect.”
“Betsy will be ten years old tomorrow, Mrs. Ekstrom,” Tacy said.
“And then we’ll all be ten,” said Tib.
“You don’t say!” Mrs. Ekstrom answered.
They started down the hill.
Before they were halfway down, the sun hid itself behind purple curtains. And the air which had been so summerlike grew suddenly remindful of winter. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib pulled on their stocking caps and buttoned their flapping coats.
“That was our last parade, I expect,” said Betsy.
“Why?” asked Tib. “I think they’re fun.”
“We’re getting too old for them,” Tacy said.
“That’s right,” said Betsy. “Marching along and yelling will seem pretty childish after tomorrow.”
“I suppose we’ll start having tea parties,” said Tacy.
“Yes. We’ll crook our little fingers over the cups like this,” answered Betsy, crooking her little finger in a very elegant way.
“We’ll say ‘indeed’ to each other,” said Tacy.
“And ‘prefer,’” said Betsy.
“Will it be fun?” asked Tib. She sounded as though she didn’t think it would be.
“Fun or not,” said Betsy, “we have to grow up. Everyone does.”
“And we’re beginning tomorrow,” said Tacy. “On Betsy’s birthday.”
They had reached Betsy’s hitching block and Betsy wished she could say something more about her birthday. She wished she could invite Tacy and Tib to her birthday supper. But her mother hadn’t said a word about inviting them. In fact, her mother did not seem to take much interest in this birthday. Betsy wondered if that was because she was growing up.
“See you tomorrow,” she said, because there was nothing better to say, and she waved good-by and ran into the house. For the first time she had a queer feeling inside about getting to be ten years old.
She woke up in the night and had the feeling again. She lay very still in the bed she shared with Julia and thought about growing up. The window at the front of the little tent-roofed bedroom which looked across to Tacy’s house showed squares of dismal gray.
“Maybe it’s not so nice growing up. Maybe it’s more fun being a child,” thought Betsy. “Well, anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it!”
She dropped off to sleep.
And next morning when she woke up she was ten years old.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were ten years old at last.
2
Ten Years Old
N THE MORNING it seemed thrilling to be ten years old.
Betsy jumped out of bed and ran to the window. The lawn, the road, the branches of the trees, and Tacy’s roof across the street were skimmed with snow. But she knew it could not last, in April.
“Happy birthday!” said Julia, struggling into her underwear beside the warm chimney which angled up from the hard coal heater downstairs. She spoke politely. She did not pound Betsy on the back as on other birthday mornings. But Betsy suspected that Julia was thinking more of the dignity of her own twelve years than of Betsy’s ten.
Betsy answered carelessly, “That’s right. It is my birthday.”
She dressed and went humming carelessly down the stairs.
Her father pounded her plenty. And he held her while Margaret pounded. She was pounded and tickled and kissed. Of course it was hard to act careless during such a rumpus, but after it was over Betsy acted careless again. She crooked her finger when she lifted her milk glass, but just a little; she was afraid that Julia would notice.
“Don’t you feel well, Betsy?” asked her mother.
“Why, yes,” said Betsy. “I feel fine.”
“She’s very quiet,” said her father. “It’s the weight of her years.”
Betsy was startled until she saw that her father was joking. Her father was a great one to joke.
The pounding and joking showed that her birthday was remembered but still nobody mentioned asking Tacy and Tib to supper. Betsy got ready for school slowly. When her father left for the shoe store, she was still dawdling over her coat and stocking cap, tangling her mitten strings, and losing her rubbers. She gave her mother plenty of chance to bring up the subject. But it didn’t do any good.
At last Betsy said, “Hadn’t I better ask Tacy and Tib over to supper, Mamma?”
“Not today,” answered Mrs. Ray. She sounded for all the world as though any other day would do as well.
“Mamma’s pretty busy today. You know Friday’s cleaning day,” Julia said importantly.
Cleaning day! Betsy could hardly believe her ears.
She tried to act as though it didn’t matter.
“When I was only nine I would have teased,” she thought.
She kissed her mother good-by and went humming out the door and across the street to Tacy’s.
Mrs. Kelly came to the door and said, “Isn’t this your birthday, Betsy?”
“Indeed it is,” said Betsy, stressing the “indeed” and looking hard at Tacy. Her manner was light and careless, very grown-up.
Mrs. Kelly did not seem to notice the grown-upness. She took Betsy’s round red cheeks in her hands and said, “It’s five years today that you and Tacy have been friends.”
“Goodness!” said Betsy, forgetting to act old for a minute because she felt so old.
But she and Tacy acted old all the way down Hill Street, and even more so after they had cut through the vacant lot to Pleasant Street and called for Tib at her beautiful chocolate-colored house. It was fun to watch Tib’s round blue eyes grow rounder as she listened to them talk.
“Will you both come to tea some day this week?” Betsy asked carelessly.
“Yes indeed,” said Tacy. “I’d love to. Wouldn’t you, Tib?”
“Um-hum,” said Tib.
“When I get some money,” said Betsy, “I’m going to buy some nail powder. I’m going to start buffing my nails. I think we all ought to.”
“So do I,” said Tacy. “I think my sister Mary would lend us a little nail powder, maybe.”
“Do you really?” asked Betsy.
“Yes indeed,” said Tacy. Tacy loved to say “indeed.”
Tib didn’t know how to talk in the new way. She hadn’t learned yet. But she tried.
“I borrowed my mamma’s nail powder once and I spilled it,” she said.
Betsy and Tacy hurried over that.
“We must buy some hair pins too,” said Betsy. “Of course we’re not quite ready to put up our hair, but we shall be soon.”
“I can hardly wait to get my skirts down,” Tacy said. “Ankle length is what I prefer.”
“What do you prefer, Tib?” asked Betsy.
“I don’t know what ‘prefer’ means, exactly,” said Tib. “Betsy, do you think I still look like a baby?”
Betsy glanced at her and hastily glanced away.
“Not so much as you did yesterday,” she said.
“Try to talk like us, Tib,” Tacy advised. “It’s easy when you get started.”
They talked grown-up all the way to school; and they kept on doing it coming home from school at noon, and going back after dinner, and coming home again at three o’clock.
On that trip, when they reached the corner by Tib’s house, Betsy felt a strong return of that queer feeling inside. The snow was melting and the ground was slushy and damp. It wasn’t a good time for playing out. Today of all days, she should be asking Tacy and Tib to come to her house. And her mother had told her not to!
Tacy and Tib acted embarrassed. Tacy looked at Tib and Tib looked at Tacy and said, “Why don’t you come into my house to play?”
“I’d like to. Wouldn’t you, Betsy?” Tacy asked.
“There are some funny papers you haven’t seen,” said Tib. “Is it all right for us to look at them, now we are ten?”
“Of course,” said Tacy hastily. “Lots of grown people read the funny papers. Don’t they, Betsy?”
“Oh, of course!” Betsy said.
So they went into Tib’s house where they always loved to go; it was so beautiful with a tower on the front and panes of colored glass in the front door. They sat on the window seat and looked at the funny papers, crooking their fingers when they turned the pages. Betsy began to feel better. She had an idea.
“I think we’re too old,” she said, “to call each other by our nicknames any more. I think we ought to start using our real names. For instance, you should call me Elizabeth.”
“Yes,” said Tacy. “And you should call me Anastacia.”
“And you should call me Thelma,” said Tib. “Hello, Anastacia! How-de-do, Elizabeth?”
The big names made them laugh. Whenever they said “Anastacia” they laughed so hard that they rolled on the window seat.
Matilda, the hired girl, came in from the kitchen.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked, looking cross. Matilda almost always looked cross.
“Anastacia and Elizabeth are making me laugh,” said Tib.
“No. It’s Thelma acting silly,” cried Betsy and Tacy.
“Where are all those folks?” asked Matilda, looking around. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib shouted at that.
They had such a good time that Betsy almost forgot how strange it was not to have Tacy and Tib come to supper on her most important birthday. But when the time came to go home she remembered.
“Tacy,” she said, as they walked through the vacant lot, “people don’t make as much fuss about birthdays after other people grow up. Have you noticed that?”
“Um—er,” said Tacy. She acted embarrassed again.
“Not that it matters, of course,” said Betsy. “It doesn’t matter a bit.”
It did, though.
It was dusk when she reached home but no lamps had been lighted except in the kitchen where Mrs. Ray was bustling about getting supper. She wore a brown velvet bow in her high red pompadour and a fresh brown checked apron tied around her slender waist.
Julia was scrubbing Margaret at the basin. And Julia too looked very spic and span.
“Clean up good for supper, Betsy,” her mother said.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Betsy.
“Mamma,” said Julia, “don’t you think Betsy ought to put on her new plaid hair ribbons?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” said Mrs. Ray.
“After all, it’s her birthday,” said Julia, and Margaret clapped h
er wet hand over her mouth and said, “Oh! Oh!” Margaret was only four years old.
“Probably she thinks Julia is giving something away. Probably she thinks I don’t know we’ll have a birthday cake,” thought Betsy., And then she thought, “Maybe we won’t. Things get so different as you get older.” She felt gloomy.
But she scrubbed her face and hands. And Julia helped her braid her hair and even crossed the braids in back; they were just long enough to cross. Julia tied the plaid bows perkily over Betsy’s ears.
When she was cleaned up, Betsy went into the back parlor. The fire was shining through the isinglass windows of the hard coal heater there. It looked cozy and she would have enjoyed sitting down beside it with a book. But her mother called out:
“Betsy, I borrowed an egg today from Mrs. Rivers. Will you return it for me, please?”
“Right now?” asked Betsy.
“Yes, please,” her mother answered.
“Of all things!” said Betsy to herself.
It seemed to her that she might return the egg tomorrow. It seemed to her that Julia might do the errands on this particular day. It was a nuisance getting into outdoor clothes when she had just taken them off.
“What must I wear?” she asked, trying not to show she was cross because it was her birthday.
“You’ll only need your coat and rubbers. Go out the back way,” her mother said.
So Betsy put on her coat and rubbers and took an egg and went out the back way.
Mrs. Rivers lived next door, and she was very nice. She had a little girl just Margaret’s age, and a still smaller girl, and a baby. The baby was sitting in a high chair eating his supper and Mrs. Rivers asked Betsy to stay a moment and watch him. He was just learning how to feed himself and he was funny.
Betsy stayed and watched him. And she said “indeed” and “prefer” to Mrs. Rivers and that cheered her up a little. Mrs. Rivers kept looking out of the window. At last she said:
“I’m afraid your mother will be expecting you now. Good-by, dear. Go out the back way.”
So Betsy went out the back way and climbed the little slope which led to her house. The ground was slippery, for the melted snow had frozen again. The stars above the hill were icy white.