Betsy-Tacy and Tib (7 page)

“Gott im Himmel!”
cried Matilda, and tablecloths and napkins fell in a snowy shower.

Tib came rightside up in a hurry. She came in such a hurry that she tumbled to the floor. The coffee urn crashed, and so did the teapot … they were silver, so they didn’t break. Oranges rolled in all directions.

But Matilda was looking at the mirror.

“Whose mirror is that?” she demanded.

“It’s yours, Matilda,” said Tib. “I borrowed it for this game we were playing.”

“We were going to put everything back, Matilda,” Betsy said.

Tacy was already picking up the linen and Freddie was pursuing oranges.

Matilda examined the mirror.

“It isn’t broken. No thanks to you,” she said.

“We’re glad it isn’t broken, Matilda,” Betsy said. And she and Tacy folded the linen so neatly, you would not have known it had fallen, hardly. Freddie had found all the oranges, so now he was picking up silver. Tib put the feather boa and the paisley shawl away.

Matilda stalked back to the kitchen.

Working silently and swiftly, Betsy and Tacy and Tib and Freddie put the dining room to rights. It looked so tidy when they had finished that no one
would dream it had ever been mussed up. Then they went to the window seat and sat down softly.

“I wonder if we’ll get the apple cake,” asked Freddie in a whisper.

“Probably not,” said Tib.

“Never mind,” said Betsy. “I’ll tell you a story about Aunt Dolly and how she happens to live in a mirror.”

So she told them the story while twilight spread purple gauze over the drifts outside.

But before she had finished Matilda brought them the apple cake. They could hardly believe their eyes when she stalked in with the tray.

“Thank you, Matilda,” said Tib. “I’m glad your mirror wasn’t broken.”

“So’m I,” Tacy murmured.

“The dining room looks all right now,” Betsy added. “Doesn’t it, Matilda?”

Matilda looked at the tidy dining room. She swept it with a stony glance.

“I hear,” she said meaningly, “that Mrs. Ray’s kitchen looked nice
too
after you kept house for
her
one day.”

And she stalked back into the kitchen.

T
HAT SPRING Tacy had diphtheria.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib had always thought that spring was the nicest part of the year; but it wasn’t much fun that year; it wasn’t much fun without Tacy.

The snow melted up on the Big Hill and came rushing down the slopes in foaming torrents. And Betsy and Tib made boats and sent them bobbing
down the stream to the Atlantic and the Pacific. They did it every year; it was one of their favorite things to do; but it wasn’t much fun without Tacy.

May Day came, and of course they made baskets. They made them out of tissue paper in all the colors of the rainbow; beautiful baskets with fringed paper trimming and braided paper handles. And they filled the baskets with spring flowers from the chilly snow-patched hills, and hung them on people’s door knobs; and rang the bells and ran away. But it wasn’t much fun without Tacy.

The trees on the hill turned slowly green and the wild plum was dazzlingly white and fragrant, and gardens were planted, and birds came back, and the last day of school arrived. Betsy and Tib emptied their desks…. Betsy emptied Tacy’s desk too … and she brought home Tacy’s books as well as her own. She and Tib marched home with their arms full of books singing loudly:

But it wasn’t much fun without Tacy. At least not so much fun as it would have been
with
Tacy. Betsy and Tib would forget and have fun, and then they
would remember that Tacy had diphtheria.

Fortunately, by that time she was almost well. People had stopped looking sober when you mentioned Tacy’s name. Tacy’s father and her big brother George and her grown-up sister Mary called out jokes when they saw Betsy and Tib, and the other brothers and sisters laughed and played on the lawn. They couldn’t leave the yard for they were quarantined with Tacy. “Quarantined” meant that they had to stay at home in order not to give anybody diphtheria. While Tacy was so sick they had to play quiet games, but now they could make all the noise they liked.

Tacy got so well that she could come to the window. She would hold up that doll George had given her at the Street Fair and make it wave its hands. Betsy and Tib sent her gifts on the end of a fish pole. They would tie the gift on the end of a pole and poke the pole over into Tacy’s yard and Katie would untie it and take it to Tacy. They sent notes and stories and pieces of cake and bouquets of flowers and a turtle.

At last Tacy got well, as well as anybody, but she was still in quarantine. She sat on the porch and she walked around the yard, and Betsy and Tib could shout at her but they couldn’t play with her. They stood on the hitching block and shouted, and she
came as near them as she was allowed to come. They could see how tall she had grown and how pale. Her freckles were almost gone, and the paleness made her eyes look big and blue.

“Tacy’s pretty,” Betsy said to Tib. “She’s almost as pretty as you are.”

“Yes, she is,” Tib agreed.

One day over at Tacy’s house there was a great deal of sweeping and scrubbing. Piles of trash were burned in the back yard and a man came to fumigate. That meant that he filled the house with a cleansing smoke. The next day the quarantine ended.

The minute it was ended Betsy and Tib ran over to see Tacy. The three of them ran around the yard and jumped over Mrs. Kelly’s peony bed and ran down to the pump and pumped water and splashed and yelled with joy. Mrs. Kelly came out on the porch and watched them, and she was smiling but she looked as though she wanted to cry. That trembling look she had on her face made Betsy feel funny. It gave her an idea.

She didn’t mention her idea for a while, there were so many things to do. Tacy could leave her own yard now; she didn’t need to stay there any more; so Betsy took hold of one of her hands and Tib took hold of the other and they went to all their favorite places. They went to the bench at the top of Hill Street, and
they went to Betsy’s backyard maple, and they went to the ridge where wild roses were in bloom.

They were sitting down on the ridge resting and smelling the roses when Betsy mentioned her idea.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I’ve been thinking a lot this morning. I’ve got an idea.”

“What is it?” asked Tacy and Tib.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Betsy, “that Tacy was pretty sick. And if she had died we wouldn’t have had a thing to remember her by.”

“I’d've remembered her,” said Tib.

“And anyhow I didn’t die,” said Tacy. “But I was certainly pretty sick. I was so sick the doctor came every day. I was so sick it’s all mixed up, like a dream. What’s your idea, Betsy? I’ll bet it’s a good one.”

“It’s this,” said Betsy. “We three ought to have something to remember each other by. You got sick, Tacy, and I might get sick too, any day. I might get sick and die.”

“I hope you won’t,” said Tib, looking worried.

“You might yourself,” answered Betsy. “You might get sick just the same as Tacy did, and you might die. We certainly ought to have something to remember each other by.”

“I think I’d remember you, Betsy,” said Tib. “I’m sure I would. Wouldn’t you remember me?”

“Well,” said Betsy, “it wouldn’t hurt to have
some special thing to help me. Like my Grandma’s got something to remember my Grandpa by.”

“What’s she got?” asked Tacy.

“It’s a piece of his hair,” said Betsy. “It was cut off his head, and she wears it in a locket.”

Tacy and Tib looked impressed.

“We’ll get us some lockets,” said Betsy. “And we’ll put in our lockets a piece of all our hairs. We could sort of braid them together. They’d look nice because Tacy’s is red, and yours, Tib, is yellow, and mine is brown.”

“They’d certainly look nice,” said Tacy.

“But we haven’t got any lockets,” said Tib.

“No,” said Betsy. “But we could cut off the hair. We could get that much done right away. I’ll run down and ask my mamma for some scissors.”

“And we’ll try to think what we can use for lockets,” Tacy said.

Betsy jumped up and ran down the hill to her house. Her mother was in the kitchen making a cake, and she was pretty busy. She was beating eggs as fast as she could.

“How’s Tacy?” she called out over the noise of the egg beater. “Is she glad to be out?”

“Yes,” said Betsy. “And we need some scissors for something we’re doing. May I take the scissors, please?”

“Yes,” said her mother. “You may take the blunt pair I let you cut paper dolls with. Hold the points down, and don’t run.”

And she finished beating her eggs and began sifting flour. Betsy took the scissors and went out the kitchen door.

Tacy and Tib called out as she came near.

“We’ve been thinking,” Tacy said, “what we could use for lockets. We won’t be able to afford lockets for a while. But do you know what we could use?”

“Pill boxes,” said Tib without waiting for Betsy to answer. “They’re just the right shape.”

“While I was sick,” said Tacy, “our house was full of pill boxes, but my mother burned them all up yesterday.”

“We have a few pill boxes at our house,” Betsy said. “Maybe some of them are empty.”

“And Mrs. Benson would have some pill boxes, I imagine,” Tacy said. “Tib and I will go and ask her while you ask your mother.”

Tacy and Tib ran down the street to Mrs. Benson’s and Betsy ran into the house to her mother again. Her mother had finished sifting flour now. She was beating the cake hard.

“Mamma,” said Betsy. “Have you any old empty pill boxes Tacy and Tib and I could have?”

“What do you want pill boxes for?” her mother
asked, sounding surprised.

“To make lockets of,” said Betsy. “We’re going to punch holes and run strings through and hang them around our necks.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ray. “Well, I think I’ve got a pill box somewhere. Just wait a minute, and I’ll see.” And she scraped the cake into the pan and popped the pan into the oven and went into the bedroom. Before Betsy had finished cleaning out the bowl and Margaret had finished licking the spoon, she was back with one pill box.

“That’s all I could find,” she said. “There’s some string on the clock shelf.”

Betsy took the pill box and the ball of string and ran back to the ridge. Tacy and Tib had just come back from Mrs. Benson’s, and they had two pill boxes, beautiful ones.

“We told her we were going to make lockets,” Tacy said. “She thought it was a fine idea.”

So they took the scissors and punched holes in the pill boxes, and they ran string through them and tied them around each other’s necks. They made lovely lockets.

“Now,” said Betsy, “it’s time to cut off the hair.”

And she picked up the scissors.

“Who’ll cut it?” asked Tacy. “I think we should take turns, because cutting hair will be fun.”

“That’s right,” said Betsy. “Well, I’ll cut yours, and you can cut Tib’s, and Tib can cut mine.”

She walked around Tacy looking at her hair and trying to decide where to begin. Tacy’s hair, as usual, was dressed in ringlets. There were ten long red ringlets, as neat as sausages.

“I’ll begin on this one,” said Betsy, and she lifted up a ringlet right next to Tacy’s face. She cut it off close to the head.

The shimmering long red ringlet looked beautiful on the grass.

“I think I’ll cut off another one,” Betsy said. And she did.

“It makes her look funny,” Tib said, staring at Tacy.

“That’s right,” said Betsy. “I’d better cut off exactly half. Then it will look neater.”

So she cut off three more ringlets, one after another. Exactly half were gone. And one side of Tacy’s head had five short stubs of curls while the other side had five long ringlets.

“Well, that’s done,” said Betsy, and she handed the scissors to Tacy.

Tacy walked around Tib looking at her hair. The short yellow curls would not be so easy to cut.

“They’re not so regular,” said Tacy. “But I’ll try to cut off exactly half.”

She began at Tib’s left ear and cut off all the curls on the left side of her head. Shining yellow rings showered the ground.

Then Tib took the scissors and walked around Betsy.

“Betsy’s easy,” she said. “She’s got two braids, and I’ll cut off one.”

She unbraided one braid and cut off the hair which had made it. Unbraided, Betsy’s hair looked crinkly; it was almost as curly as Tacy’s and Tib’s.

They put all the hair they had cut in a row on the grass. Red ringlets, short yellow curls, crinkly brown hair. They divided it into three equal piles,
and each one took a pile. But the piles were much too big to stuff into a pill box. The pill boxes wouldn’t hold a fraction of what they had cut. They filled them as full as they could, and they spread the rest of the hair on the wild rose bushes.

“The birds can use that hair in their nests,” Tacy said. “I once saw a bird carrying hair.”

They played around the rose bushes a while but the more they looked at each other, the funnier each one thought the other two looked. They began to be a little worried about going home.

“Let’s go all together,” said Betsy. “Three can explain things better than one.”

So they took hold of hands, very tightly, and went down the hill.

They went to Betsy’s house first. And when Betsy’s mother saw them she shrieked. Grown-ups don’t often shriek, but that was what Betsy’s mother did.

“Betsy!” she cried. “Tacy! Tib! Whatever have you done to yourselves!”

“We’ve cut off our hair,” said Betsy.

“But why? What for?” cried Betsy’s mother.

“To remember each other by,” said Betsy.

“That’s nonsense!” cried Betsy’s mother. And she put down her knife … she had been frosting the cake … but she didn’t offer a speck of the frosting to anybody. She took off her apron and lifted up
Margaret, who was staring at Betsy with eyes like saucers. “You come along with me,” she said, and Mrs. Ray and Margaret and Betsy and Tacy and Tib went across the street to Mrs. Kelly’s.

Mrs. Kelly was sweeping the walk. She saw them coming, and after she had looked at them hard she threw her apron over her head. When she took down the apron she was crying. She ran her hand over Tacy’s head and said, “Oh those beautiful long red ringlets! Those beautiful long red ringlets!” She felt bad.