Betsy-Tacy (6 page)

W
HEN SUMMER TIME came Betsy and Tacy didn't need to bother with school any more. They could play all day long. They did play all day long, and they never once ran out of things to do.

“The days aren't long enough for those two,” Betsy's mother used to say to Betsy's father.

This was true; although it was strange, for a day was very long.

A day filled all the hours which it took the sun to wheel from behind the white house on the Big Hill, across the vast blue spaces of the sky, to the trees down behind Tacy's barn. By the time evening came and Betsy and Tacy were playing games with the other Hill Street children (not made-up games, but real games, like Pom Pom Pullaway and Run, Sheep, Run), they could hardly remember the cool morning hours when they had had the world to themselves. But in all the long golden time in between, they never ran out of games to play.

One of their favorite games was dressing up. They loved to dress up in grown-up clothes and go calling.

One day Betsy's mother let her dress up in her old tan lace dress. It was a beautiful dress with a big pink rose in the front. Betsy poked an old table cloth underneath her skirts behind to make a bustle like her mother's. And she wore an old hat of her mother's, a round hat with a veil.

Tacy wore a striped blue and green silk dress of her grown-up sister Mary's. Her curls were pinned high, and she wore a big hat covered with flowers. And Mary let her carry her parasol, which was pink with ruffles all around it.

When Tacy was given the parasol, she and Betsy raced back to Betsy's house.

“Mamma,” Betsy cried, “Tacy has a parasol. May I carry your parasol?”

“No,” said Betsy's mother. “But you may carry my cardcase.” She got it out of the bureau drawer. One side was filled with cards which said “Mrs. Robert Ray.” A little lace-edged handkerchief, smelling of violet perfume, peeked out of the other side. Betsy's mother carried this case when she went calling. She left a card at every house.

Betsy took the cardcase and Tacy opened the parasol, and they started down Hill Street.

“We'll call on Mrs. Benson,” Betsy said.

So they called on Mrs. Benson, and she was very glad to see them.

“Come right in,” she said. “How are you, Mrs. Ray? How do you do, Mrs. Kelly?”

She pretended that they were their mothers, instead of Betsy and Tacy. Of course that was the right thing to do.

“Sit right down,” she said, and they sat down on the sofa. “It's lovely weather we're having.”

“Yes, isn't it?” said Betsy in a very grown-up tone. Tacy didn't talk much; she was bashful.

“I hear you bought some sand, Mrs. Benson,” said Betsy in the grown-up tone.

“Yes, I did. Would you like to see it?” asked Mrs. Benson, and she went to her desk and brought out the two bottles full of sand which Betsy and Tacy had colored, the perfume bottle with the blue colored stopper and the big fat jar.

“Mercy, what beautiful sand!” said Betsy.

“Isn't it!” cried Mrs. Benson. “I bought it from two little girls named Betsy and Tacy.”

Tacy looked up then, her blue eyes dancing into Mrs. Benson's. “I know those little girls,” she said.

“I thought maybe you did,” said Mrs. Benson.

After a minute Mrs. Benson asked, “Wouldn't
you like some tea?”

“Tea?” asked Betsy, so surprised that she forgot to talk like her mother.

“Afternoon tea,” explained Mrs. Benson. “What ladies drink when they go calling.”

“Oh, of course,” said Betsy. “I'd love some. Wouldn't you, Tacy?”

So Mrs. Benson gave them some tea…cambric tea, she called it, and it was delicious. They had cookies with their tea, and Betsy and Tacy nibbled them daintily. But they ate them to the very last crumb.

When the cookies were gone, Betsy said, “Well,
I'm afraid we'll have to be going. Good-by, Mrs. Benson.”

“Good-by, Mrs. Ray,” Mrs. Benson said.

“Good-by, Mrs. Benson,” said Tacy, not bashful any more.

“Good-by, Mrs. Kelly,” said Mrs. Benson. “May I help you open your parasol?”

Then Betsy remembered the cardcase.

“And I must leave you a card,” she said. “Here's a card for me and one for Tacy.”

Betsy and Tacy went on, down Hill Street Hill.

“Who shall we call on next?” asked Tacy.

“I know,” said Betsy. “We'll call at the chocolate-colored house.”

So they went on down Hill Street Hill to the corner and through the vacant lot. It was farther than they had ever gone before in grown-up clothes. They held their long skirts high so that the weeds and bushes would not tear them, and they came to the chocolate-colored house.

“Tacy,” said Betsy, “I never yet saw anybody around this chocolate-colored house.”

“Neither did I,” said Tacy.

They looked at it a moment before they climbed to the door.

It sat like a big plump chocolate drop on the big square corner lot. There weren't many trees around
it; just a green lawn with flower beds on either side of the white cement walk which led to the porch steps.

Betsy and Tacy walked up that walk and climbed the porch steps.

They rang the bell and waited.

While they were waiting they looked around. The tower jutted right out on the porch. It had windows in it, but all the shades were pulled down. The pane of colored glass over the front door shone
ruby red in the sunlight.

No one answered their ring, and Betsy and Tacy rang the bell again. They rang it again and again.

At last the lady next door came out of her house. She looked busy and cross.

“What are you doing on that porch, little girls?” she asked in a sharp voice.

“We're ringing the bell,” said Betsy. “We've come to call.”

“Tell her about the cardcase,” whispered Tacy.

But before Betsy could speak again, the lady said, “Well, the people who live there aren't home. They've gone to Milwaukee.”

She went back into her house and shut the door.

“Milwaukee,” said Betsy.

“Milwaukee,” said Tacy.

They liked the sound of the word.

“I wish I could go to Milwaukee,” said Betsy.

“What's it like?” asked Tacy.

“Oh, it's lovely,” said Betsy. “Milwaukee. Milwaukee.” She said the name over and over.

“While we walk home,” she said to Tacy, “I'll make up a poem about it.” Betsy liked to make up poems.

“First we must leave a card, though,” said Tacy.

“Of course,” said Betsy.

They opened the cardcase and took out a card
and put it in the mailbox. Mrs. Robert Ray, it said on the card. They took out another and left that one too. The second one was from Tacy.

While they walked home, Betsy made up the poem about Milwaukee. It went like this:

“That's a nice poem,” said Tacy. “I like the part about me.”

So they sang it together, making up a tune. They sang it all the way through the vacant lot. And just at the edge of the vacant lot they saw Betsy's father who was driving home for supper. He was driving Old Mag and had just slowed down for Hill Street Hill.

“Stop!” “Wait!” “Give us a ride!” cried Betsy and Tacy. They picked up their long skirts and began to run.

“Why, how do you do, Mrs. Vanderbilt?” said
Betsy's father. “And how do you do, Mrs. Astor?”

He stopped Old Mag and cramped the wheel of the buggy, and Betsy and Tacy climbed in.

Betsy took the reins and Tacy held the whip. Julia and Katie were watching from the steps of the Ray house.

“Giddap!” said Betsy.

“Whoa!” said Tacy.

They drove in triumph around the little road which led to Old Mag's barn.

B
ETSY AND Tacy liked to ride home with Betsy's father, or Tacy's. Along about sunset they would walk to the foot of Hill Street Hill and wait. Sometimes they rode up the hill with Mr. Ray and sometimes with Mr. Kelly. Always they rode around to the barn and helped to feed and water the horse, and saw straw put down
for his bed and the buggy rolled into the buggy shed.

During the day they liked to play in Betsy's buggy shed. It was dark and smelled of hay and oats from the barn which stood right beside it. When Old Mag was in the barn they could hear her chewing oats and stamping flies, but she wasn't often there. She was gone to the store and so was the buggy. Only the surrey was left in the buggy shed for Betsy and Tacy to play with.

The surrey had two seats and a canopy edged with fringe. There was a pocket in one corner for the whip, and a dust robe to spread on their laps. It was used mostly on Sundays when the family went to church or took a picnic to the river, and on summer evenings when they sometimes went riding while their bedrooms cooled off after the heat of the day.

“Shall we sit in the front seat or the back seat?” asked Tacy now, as she and Betsy climbed in.

“The front seat,” said Betsy. For children usually sat in the back seat. So Betsy and Tacy sat in the front seat, and Betsy picked up the whip. Tacy tucked the robe around them, although it was a very warm day.

“Giddap!” said Betsy, cracking the whip.

“Don't go too fast,” said Tacy.

“I won't,” said Betsy. “I think too much of my horse.” That was what her father said, so she knew it was the proper thing to say.

Through the open door of the buggy shed, they could see the Big Hill. It was pleasantly green with an arc of blue above it.

“See things fly past!” said Betsy. “Streets and houses and things.”

“Where are we going?” asked Tacy.

“To Milwaukee,” said Betsy.

“Goodie!” said Tacy. “That's the place I want most of all to see.”

“Well, you're going there now,” said Betsy, and she cracked the whip again. “Tuck up good,” she said.

“Did we bring a lunch?” asked Tacy.

“Yes,” said Betsy. “It's under the seat. There are chicken sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and potato salad and watermelon and chocolate cake and sweet pickles and sugar cookies and ice cream.”

“It ought to be plenty,” Tacy said.

They went down Hill Street to Broad Street where the churches and the library and the big houses were; and they turned from Broad Street to Front Street where the stores were. They went past the office where Tacy's father sold sewing machines and past the store where Betsy's father sold shoes.
But they didn't stop.

“We haven't time,” said Betsy.

They went on down Front Street to the Big Mill at the end. That Big Mill blew the whistle for six o'clock in the morning and twelve o'clock noon and six o'clock at night. It wasn't blowing any whistles now. Betsy and Tacy rode past it. They rode up Front Street Hill and out of the town of Deep Valley. They were out in the country now.

“I think it's time for our lunch,” Tacy said.

“Yes, it is,” said Betsy. “We'll stop here beside this lake.”

So they stopped beside a lake, and they let Old Mag's check rein down so that she could drink. And Betsy and Tacy sat down in the shade and opened their picnic basket.

“I just love chicken sandwiches,” said Betsy.

“This ice cream is good,” said Tacy. “It hasn't melted a bit.”

“We must be careful not to squirt this watermelon,” Betsy said.

“Yes,” said Tacy. “We forgot to bring any napkins.”

When they had finished eating they climbed back into the surrey and they rode and rode and rode.

“I see Milwaukee,” Betsy said after a while.

“Do you?” asked Tacy. “Where?”

“See those towers a way, way off?” Betsy said. And when they had come closer, she said, “It looks like the cities on my Sunday School cards, with that wall and all those towers.”

“That's right,” said Tacy. “I see palm trees.”

“The people will wear red and blue night gowns, like they do on the Sunday School cards, most likely,” Betsy said.

“Maybe there will be camels,” said Tacy.

“Of course there will be camels. I think I see a camel's head now, sticking around….”

There was a head sticking around the side of the buggy shed door. But it didn't belong to a camel. It belonged to the little boy named Tom.

“Hello,” he called out doubtfully.

“What are you doing here?” Betsy asked.

“My mother brought me. She came on an errand.”

“Oh! Well, you can play with us if you want to.”

“What are you playing?”

“We're going on a trip in this surrey.”

“Where to?” he asked, coming in.

Betsy hesitated, and Tacy didn't speak either. They liked Tom; but boys were boys; they didn't always understand. And Milwaukee was no ordinary city. Milwaukee was their secret. They had a song about it.

“Just going on a trip,” said Betsy. “Is there anywhere you'd like to go?”

“Sure,” said Tom. “I'd like to go to St. Paul. I went there once. Stayed at a hotel. And a man gave me a nickel. We went to St. Paul on a train though. Do you think that horse could make it?” he stared at the empty shafts.

“This is a fine horse,” said Betsy. “And you may drive because you're company.”

So she and Tacy didn't get to Milwaukee that day, after all. But they had a good time in St. Paul. They stayed in St. Paul until Julia and Katie came to tell them that there were lemonade and cookies for the children under the butternut tree.