Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (37 page)

They reached her house. By the arc light on the corner she saw the little nest Margaret had put out.
Since their departure, the bunny had visited it. It contained a fluffy hen and a flock of yellow chicks.

Betsy pointed to it, trying to speak naturally.

“Isn't that cute?”

But Tony didn't answer. They paused awkwardly.

“Come in?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” he answered. He brought his hand up to his cap in a reluctant concession to manners, walked rapidly away.

When Betsy went in the house, she dropped down on the sofa and started to cry. The house was dark and she didn't want the lights. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” she wept. She felt forlorn and ashamed of herself.

Tony had not meant any disrespect when he kissed her. He respected her; he looked up to her. She knew it. He understood, too, that you didn't let boys kiss you unless you were in love with them. She had let him think she
was
in love…or falling.

And he was really in love with her. She knew it as well as though he had told her. He probably would have told her, if she had been different tonight. He might even have said that he wanted them to be engaged. But maybe not. Tony, although so bold, was inarticulate. It would have been hard for him to find words for that. He would have meant it, though.

Still crying, she jumped up and tiptoed down to the
basement. She went to the small room where luggage was kept, brought out her satchel, and tiptoed upstairs. She started throwing piles of clothing into the satchel.

Tomorrow, after Margaret had found her nest, after Easter church and dinner, she was going away. She was going to ask her father to take her to the Beidwinkles' after all.

B
ETSY WOKE EARLY
on the morning after Easter, flooded by a sense of peace. She had slept dreamlessly on a puffy feather bed beneath Mrs. Beidwinkle's fresh-smelling sheets, her patchwork quilts and downy comforter, and she lay staring at a framed motto which said “Griiss Gott” in cross stitch, unable for a moment to remember where she was.

The window was a square of gray, but through the slot in the storm sash, she could hear a delicious jumble of bird voices. She recognized the killdeer shouting his own name and the robin going joyously up and down.

She felt happy. It came to her that she had not been happy for a very long time. Now the things which had been making her unhappy…the quarrel with Joe, the worry about Tony, the nervous, strained anxiety about school affairs—all these had faded away. She lay in bed smiling.

Presently she jumped up, closed the window, and poured water from the pitcher into the bowl. She gave herself a vigorous cold sponge, despite the fact that the room was chilly. She dressed warmly, putting on a red flannel waist and a plaid skirt. Not bothering with puffs, she braided her hair and turned it up with a ribbon. She realized suddenly that she had forgotten last night to put it up on Magic Wavers. When, she thought, bursting into a laugh, had she ever forgotten that before?

She and her father had arrived late, after supper. She had not even unpacked her suitcase, except for her dresses. She saw them on hangers in the closet, her Peter Thompson suit, the white and gold wool dress. Why on earth had she brought that? she wondered. She must have been crazy when she packed,
thinking that parties pursued one everywhere.

Briskly, she laid her underwear and shirt waists in neat piles in the bureau drawers which stuck when she tried to open them, but were immaculately papered inside. She arranged her toilet articles on top of the bureau and set her family photographs around. She laid out her comb and brush and mirror.

There was a little table in one corner which would be perfect for her writing. She brought it up flush to the window, which looked out into a bare box elder tree and across the Beidwinkles' front lawn, a sheet of gray snow in the gray light.

She took the starched white spread off the table, folded it, and put it away. Then she set out her tablets, notebooks, and pencils, her pencil sharpener and her eraser and the ruler she had brought…goodness knew why! She added the Bible, her prayer book, and the dictionary. There!

“I'm going to start a story this morning,” she decided. “I think it will be about a girl who goes away somewhere, to Newport, maybe. I'll bet it will sell, too,” she added. (None of last summer's stories had sold, although she had kept them continuously on the go.)

Last night's impression of the house returned as she literally skipped down the narrow stairs. It was the cleanest house she had ever been in, and it looked
very old-fashioned, with rag carpets and crocheted tidies on the chairs.

There was an organ in the parlor, she noticed, peeking into that formidable room. The horsehair chairs sat about in prickly splendor. On a square table there was a gigantic family Bible with a velvet-covered photograph album on the ledge beneath. On a round table were wax flowers under glass, with a stereopticon set on the ledge.

Betsy and her father had sat in the kitchen, which was, she soon found out, the most used and the pleasantest room in the house. It was large, with blue and white curtains, red geraniums in the windows, and a wood-burning cook stove, its nickel trim polished to the gleam of solid silver.

Fire was roaring in the stove this morning, and beside it Mrs. Beidwinkle leaned over a crate which held a flock of chirping yellow chicks. She was a large, big-busted woman with a childlike face. Her graying hair was parted and brushed smoothly down over her ears, in which tiny earrings were set. Graying braids were twisted round and round to make a bun in the back.

Betsy stooped to admire the chicks.

“The sweet little things! May I help you get breakfast?” she asked, feeling rather proud of being down so early.

Mrs. Beidwinkle laughed gleefully. “Breakfast!” she ejaculated. “Mein Mann milked the cows two hours ago. We had breakfast then. I have my wash on the line and was just going to have a little coffee.”

“Do you get up so early every day?”

“Earlier in the summertime. But you are to sleep as late as you can. I always have second breakfasts. My second can be your first.”

On a red-cloth-covered table Mrs. Beidwinkle set out coffee cake and a plateful of cookies, thickly sliced homemade bread, and a bowl of milk. She poured a cup of coffee for herself and offered one to Betsy, but Betsy didn't want it. It had obviously been reheated and looked as black as ink. The bread and milk, coffee cake, and cookies were delicious.

Betsy enjoyed talking with Mrs. Beidwinkle, who plainly enjoyed talking with her. All her children—four sons and five daughters—were married and gone.

“But Amelia lives near. She is the youngest one.”

Mrs. Beidwinkle was full of legends of her children, their illnesses, their love affairs, their triumphs and disappointments, the death of one. When she got up at last, saying that she must bring in her wash, Betsy put on her cravenette and went out to explore.

It was cold. The wind almost blew her off her feet, and the windmill was whirling. Big clouds, some dark, some pearly white, sailed in a gray sky.

She went to the barn, where she made friends with
a sheep dog and saw a litter of kittens. Big, bearded Mr. Beidwinkle, less impressive than he had seemed last night, called out to her from a shed where he was tinkering with a plough. He introduced her to small, grizzled Bill, the hired man.

They weren't so busy as they would be later, Mr. Beidwinkle said. He couldn't start ploughing until the frost was out of the ground. Meanwhile he was repairing and oiling farm machinery; he and Bill were building a new chicken house; he was hauling wood from the wood lot.

Betsy returned to the house, cold and blown, went up to her room, and started her story.

After dinner, which was eaten in the kitchen, she helped with the dishes, then went up to her room, undressed, and took a nap. She slept from two to four, got up and dressed again, put on her cravenette and overshoes, and took another walk.

It was colder than ever; she couldn't face north. But the smell of spring was in the air. A crow flew out of an oak tree, flapping his big wings and croaking, “Caw! Caw! Caw!” She saw the green spears of tulips on the south side of the house.

She ate voraciously at supper, which was like a second dinner, with beer for the men. Mr. Beidwinkle addressed his wife in German and Betsy volunteered the information that she was studying it. They were delighted.

“
Sz'e sprechen Deutsch, ja?
” Mr. Beidwinkle asked.

“
Ein wenig
,” Betsy replied. “I'd love to try to talk it with you sometimes while I'm here.”

Bill began to point out articles on the table, giving their German names. But Betsy had played this game with the Mullers. She cried out the names before he had a chance to utter them and soon everyone was laughing. She was so expert that they had to point to the cupboards, to the stove, to find words she didn't know.

After supper, the Beidwinkles went into the back parlor, where a ruddy-windowed coal stove reminded Betsy of Hill Street. Mr. Beidwinkle and Bill buried themselves in German newspapers, Mrs. Beidwinkle went to work on her embroidery. Betsy started
Little Dorrit
, which she had brought from home, but her thoughts kept going to the organ locked away in the front parlor.

At last she mentioned it hesitantly. “Would you mind if I went in sometimes and played your organ? Not tonight when Mr. Beidwinkle is reading, but tomorrow maybe.”

“What?” cried Mr. Beidwinkle. “You play the organ? Mamma! She plays the organ. We can make music.”

Mrs. Beidwinkle was as excited as her husband, and Bill, too, eased himself to his feet.

“That organ is never played since our last daughter
married and went away. Ach, we would be happy to hear some music again!”

Mrs. Beidwinkle bustled into the front parlor and lit the lamp. Mr. Beidwinkle and Bill came in and took chairs, and Betsy began to feel stage fright.

“I don't play very well, you know. Not like my sister, Julia. I just thought maybe I could practise…”

“You practise, and we listen,” Mr. Beidwinkle said. “You are used to an organ?
Ja?
”

“No. But I don't think it's very different from a piano.”

Mrs. Beidwinkle unlocked it proudly. She pointed out the eleven stops, the knee swells, the pedals covered with Brussels carpet. Betsy sat down timidly, and tried them out. She started her simple repertoire.

“Can't you sing?” Mr. Beidwinkle demanded.

Betsy was nonplused. Of course she could sing; she had been singing all her life. But she didn't sing for people all alone, as Julia and Tacy did. She just sang.

She discovered now that she could sing if she had to for other people, all alone. Mr. and Mrs. Beidwinkle and Bill were looking so radiantly expectant that she couldn't disappoint them. Finding the proper chords, she sang “Juanita” and “Annie Laurie” and some of the other old songs her father loved. Then she began on the popular songs: “Tonight Will Never Come Again” (at which Mrs. Beidwinkle wiped her
eyes), “I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now,” “The Rose of Mexico,” “Yip-i-addy-i-ay.” Bill liked that one.

At last she began the new song Julia had sent her at Christmas. Just for fun she sang it in German—“
Kind, Du Kannst Tanzen….
”

Mr. Beidwinkle laughed and slapped his knee. “Gollee, gollee,” he said over and over.

After that, every evening Betsy sang “Tonight Will Never Come Again” for Mrs. Beidwinkle, who always wiped her eyes, “Yip-i-addy-i-ay” for Bill, and “
Kind, Du Kannst Tanzen
” for Mr. Beidwinkle, who chuckled and said, “Gollee.”

Betsy went upstairs and into her little room smiling. It was cold, but she didn't mind. Without lighting the lamp, she sat down by the window and looked out at the ghostly landscape.

She was glad she had studied German. There had been such satisfaction in being able to talk a little with the Beidwinkles. And she was glad that when Julia went away, she had learned to play the piano! She would never play well, she knew. She could never sing like Julia. She didn't even want to; she wanted to write stories. But how pleasant it was to be able to play enough to give pleasure to people!

“I'm going to write Miss Cobb and tell her. She'll be glad to hear.”

Her thoughts turned to Leonard. She had thought
about him when she was out walking today. She felt a little better about Leonard out here in the country. It was just being close to nature, she supposed. In the country you felt as you never could in town the return of spring after winter. You felt a sort of pulse in the earth, which proved that nothing dies, that everything comes back in beauty.

Leonard was coming back…in some place beautiful enough to pay him for leaving the world. God knew all about his music, too. He would use that music someplace.

“I should have known that in church Easter morning. I'm surprised that I didn't. But I was awfully mixed up.”

She was thankful to her father for having sent her out here. The trip had already given her perspective. The problems about Tony didn't seem so difficult now. There would be some way to get back to the old loving friendship.

The days fell into a pattern similar to the pattern of the first day. Betsy had her first breakfast with Mrs. Beidwinkle's second. She took a walk every morning and every afternoon, going farther and farther afield. The weather warmed up, melting the snow, so that there was a terrible mixture of ice, slush, and water underfoot. But there were compensations.

There was the vivid spring sky. There was the
spring taste in the air. There were buds swelling on the trees in the wood lot, and white bloodroots, pink and lavender hepaticas under wet mats of last year's leaves. There were meadow larks rising with a flash of yellow to sing in a rapture that made one catch one's breath.

She finished her first story and began a second one. She finished the second and began a third. She and the Beidwinkles talked in German every night at supper. Mrs. Beidwinkle taught her a poem in German which she recited to uproarious applause. Every evening she went into the parlor and played the organ and sang.

She wasn't homesick. She remembered how homesick she had been at the Taggarts' farm four years ago. That farm had been just as nice; the Taggarts had been just as kind as Mr. and Mrs. Beidwinkle. But she had suffered so much with homesickness that for months the mere memory of it had filled her with desolation. Now she was happy from morning until night.

“You do grow up,” she thought.

It was pleasant to talk with her mother, who telephoned sometimes in the evening. And she had letters from Tacy and Tib. But the letters seemed to come from a great distance. She had forgotten the woes which had weighed her down at home.

“Betsy,” Mrs. Beidwinkle said on Friday at dinner. “We would like to have a little party before you go home.”

“A party?” asked Betsy, startled. The word surprised her. She associated parties with the Crowd and Deep Valley, not this peaceful haven.

She saw that Mr. Beidwinkle and Bill were watching her eagerly. Mrs. Beidwinkle looked as pleased as a child.

“
Ja
,” she said. “We would like to invite Amelia and her husband to come and hear you sing.”

“To hear me
sing?
”

“
Ja
,” said Mrs. Beidwinkle. “On Saturday night. We'll have refreshments. It will be a regular party.”

Betsy knew then why she had brought the white wool dress!

That evening Mr. Beidwinkle remarked, “Tomorrow's Saturday. Mamma usually goes to town with me on Saturday. Would you like to go along?”