Betsy-Tacy and Tib (4 page)

“Yes, Tom can play his violin,” said Betsy. “And I’ll stand out in front and shout for people to come. ‘Right this way to the one and only Flying Lady! She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies!’”

“What will I do?” asked Tib.

“You’ll sell tickets,” said Betsy. “We’ll paste a strip of gold paper over your front teeth.”

“Who’ll be the Flying Lady?” Tacy asked nervously.

“You,” said Betsy. “Because you look just like her. Do you s’pose you can wear one of your sister Mary’s night gowns? After I get through calling out about the show, and Tib gets through selling tickets, we’ll go inside behind the curtain. We’ll sit on the back end of the see-saw, to make you go up and down.”

Tacy didn’t like the idea any too well.

But that was what they did, that very day. They gave a Flying Lady show in Betsy’s father’s buggy shed. All the children of Hill Street came, and a few grown-ups. Mrs. Benson, who didn’t have any children of her own, came and paid a nickel.

And Betsy shouted out in front, “Right this way to the one and only Flying Lady. She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies.” And Tib took tickets, showing her gold teeth all she could. And the little boy named Tom played
Narcissus
on his violin. He played it beautifully.

They gave a wonderful show but there was one unfortunate incident. Betsy and Tib made Tacy’s
end of the see-saw go so high that Tacy got scared. She clutched the plank and cried, “Stop! Stop! I’m falling!” And of course a few rude children laughed, but most of them applauded.

After that show Betsy and Tacy and Tib stopped trying to fly. They never tried to fly again.

B
ETSY, TACY and Tib didn’t always play on Hill Street. Sometimes they played at Tib’s house, over on Pleasant Street.

They loved to play at Tib’s house for they thought it very beautiful with its chocolate color and its tower and the panes of colored glass in the front door.

They loved especially to play in Tib’s basement.

At Betsy’s house there wasn’t any basement. There was only a cellar. Her father opened a trap door in the kitchen and took a stub of candle and went down and came back with apples which were kept there in a barrel, or perhaps a jug of cider. At Tacy’s house it was much the same. But at Tib’s house there was a basement.

It was floored with cement, and it was warm and dry and sunny. In the center was a strange contrivance called a furnace, which heated Tib’s house. This was the only furnace in Deep Valley. In the basement also there were tubs for washing clothes. There were closets where glass jars full of pickles and jellies were stored. And there was a great open space where wood was piled, stacked in long orderly rows.

One day just before school began Betsy and Tacy came over to play with Tib. They wiped their feet hard on the mat at Tib’s back door, for Tib’s house was very clean. After they had wiped their feet hard, they rapped and the hired girl came to the door.

“Hello,” said Betsy. “We came over to play with Tib.”

“Hello,” said the hired girl. Her name was Matilda. She was old and wore glasses and had graying yellow braids wound round and round her
head. “Have you wiped your feet?” she asked, looking down at their shoes.

“Yes, we have,” said Betsy.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” said Matilda, “for Tib is down in the basement. And there’s such a mess there; it couldn’t be worse.”

“What kind of a mess?” Betsy asked eagerly, and Tacy’s blue eyes began to dance. A mess! That sounded like fun.

“Go see for yourselves,” said Matilda. “You can go down the outside way.”

The two sloping doors which admitted from the outside of the house to the basement were flung open. Betsy and Tacy scampered down the stairs. And down in the basement they did indeed find a mess. A beautiful mess!

The winter’s supply of wood had been thrown into the basement but it had not yet been piled; it had just been thrown in helter skelter. There seemed to be an ocean of wood, and rising like islands were two small yellow heads, belonging to Tib and her little brother Freddie.

Tib had two brothers, but the one named Hobbie was hardly more than a baby. Frederick was Paul’s age; he was old enough to play with; and like Tib he was good natured and easy to play with.

“We’re building a house out of wood,” he shouted now, as Betsy and Tacy waded joyfully in.

“Come on and help!” cried Tib.

Betsy and Tacy took off their hats and helped.

They piled the wood just the way Tib and Freddie told them to. For Tib and Freddie were good at building houses; their father was an architect. This house they were building was like a real house. It was wonderful.

It was big enough to sit down in. It was even big enough to stand up in, if you didn’t stand too straight. It had a window, and a doorway you could
walk through, if you stooped only a little.

They found some boards and laid them across the top for a roof.

“Now it can’t rain in,” Betsy said.

They worked so hard that they grew warm and sticky and dirty and very tired. But it was such fun that they were amazed when they heard the whistles blowing for twelve o’clock.

“Oh, dear, we must go home for dinner,” Betsy said. “But we’ll hurry back.”

“We’ll eat fast,” Tacy said.

“We’ll eat fast too,” said Tib, and she and Freddie hurried up the stairs.

Betsy and Tacy ran all the way home to their dinners.

“Mercy goodness, what’s the matter?” asked Betsy’s mother when Betsy ran into the house. “Your cheeks are like fire.”

“Oh, Mamma!” cried Betsy. “We’re having such fun. We’re building a house in Tib’s basement.”

“When can we move in?” asked Betsy’s father, who was already eating his dinner with Margaret in the high chair beside him. Betsy’s father loved to joke.

Betsy washed her hands and face and sat down opposite Julia. She thought she ate her dinner quicker than a wink but she wasn’t quite through
when she heard Tacy yoo-hooing from her hitching block. Tacy’s mother wouldn’t let her come over to the Rays’ house when they were eating a meal. She didn’t think it was polite. So Tacy always waited on the hitching block. But she yoo-hooed once in a while.

Betsy gobbled her peach pie and gulped her milk.

“It’s Julia’s turn to wipe the dishes. ’xcuse me?” she asked, jumping up.

Her braids flew out behind her as she vanished through the door. She and Tacy took hold of hands and ran down Hill Street.

As fast as they had been, Tib and Freddie were in the basement before them.

“We have to hurry,” Tib explained, “for a man is coming at four o’clock to pile this wood.”

“And we won’t have a house any more,” Freddie said, as though he didn’t like it.

“It’s a long time ’til four o’clock,” Betsy said.

“Where’d you get the carpet?” Tacy asked.

“Our mamma gave it to us,” Tib and Freddie answered proudly.

It was a beautiful carpet. It was red with yellow roses in it. They spread it down inside their house and placed chunks of wood for chairs.

When they had finished they sat down inside their house. There was room for all, although it was
crowded. Tib didn’t mind if Freddie put his feet in her lap. Betsy and Tacy didn’t mind being squeezed against each other.

“Has your funny paper come?” Betsy asked.

Tib’s father’s paper came all the way from Milwaukee. There was a Sunday edition, and that had a funny paper in it.

“Yes, it came today,” said Tib, and she ran upstairs to get it.

They squeezed into their little house again, and Betsy read the funny paper out loud, all about Buster Brown and Alphonse and Gaston and the Katzenjammer Kids. Matilda came down to visit them, bringing some coffee cake. (Butter and sugar and cinnamon were pleasantly mixed on the top.)

It was fun to eat coffee cake and read the funny paper in their own crowded little house.

“I wish it would never get to be four o’clock,” said Freddie. Betsy and Tacy and Tib wished so too.

But bye and bye it got to be four o’clock.

A strange man came down the stairs in his shirt sleeves, and behind him came Mr. Muller. He had come down to see the house, he said. The children all scrambled out so that he could see it better, and he walked around it smiling.

“That’s a good little house,” he said, patting
Freddie on the shoulder. “Freddie, when he grows up, shall be an architect like Papa.”

“What about me, Papa? Will I be an architect too?” asked Tib.

“Nein
, you will be a little housewife,” said her father.

Betsy and Tacy thought that was strange, for Tib had done as much as Freddie toward building the house. But it didn’t matter much, for in their hearts they were sure that Tib was going to be a dancer.

“And now,” said Mr. Muller, “we must take this nice house down.”

Nobody answered, and Mr. Muller looked around the circle. Betsy’s face was very red, Tacy was hanging her head and Tib’s round blue eyes were fixed on her father pleadingly. Freddie walked over to a corner of the basement. He pretended to be hunting for something.

Mr. Muller rubbed his mustache.

“Do you remember,” he asked after a moment, “the story of the three little pigs?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Betsy and Tacy and Tib.

“They built three little houses,” said Tib’s father, “and the Wolf knocked them down.”

“That’s right,” said Betsy and Tacy and Tib all together.

“Very good,” said Mr. Muller. “Well, you, Betsy and Tacy and Tib, are three little pigs. Only you have built just one house between you, just one little house, and this is it. And you, Freddie, are the Wolf, and you must knock it down.”

“All right,” cried Freddie, running back, forgetting to cry.

“I’m Whitey!” cried Tib, ruffling up her curls.

“I’m Blackie!” cried Betsy.

“I’m Reddie!” cried Tacy. (She couldn’t be Brownie, because her hair was red.)

They rushed back inside the little house and
started pretending they were pigs.

Freddie came loping up to the doorway. He made his voice very sweet and soft.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”

Betsy and Tacy and Tib roared together.

“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.”

Freddie roared back in the loudest voice he could find.

“Then I’ll puff, and I’ll huff, and I’ll blow your house in.”

He jumped around outside the little house, puffing and huffing, and Betsy and Tacy and Tib clung to each other and screamed.

“Watch out!” cried Mr. Muller. “Don’t get hurt, anyone!”

Freddie puffed, and he huffed, and he huffed, and he puffed. At last he jumped straight into the little house and down it fell in chunks of wood around Betsy and Tacy and Tib. And he chased them through the basement, and he chased them up the stairs, and he chased them out to the knoll on the back lawn which was one of their favorite places to play. There they all fell down laughing underneath the oak tree.

But after they got rested they went on with the game. They pretended to do all the things the three little pigs in the story had done. They hunted for
turnips, and they hunted for apples, and they went to the Fair.

It was a lovely game, and it lasted all afternoon. It lasted until Julia and Katie came hunting for Betsy and Tacy.