Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill Read online

  Betsy and Tacy

  Go Over the Big Hill

  Maud Hart Lovelace

  Illustrated by Lois Lenski

  For KATHLEEN and TESS,

  the villains of the piece

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Epigraph

  1 Getting to Be Ten

  2 Ten Years Old

  3 The King of Spain

  4 Naifi

  5 The School Entertainment

  6 A Quarrel

  7 Out for Votes

  8 Little Syria

  9 The Quarrel Again

  10 A Princess

  11 A Queen

  About the Author

  About Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Foreword

  When I was about nine my mother saw an ad in the paper for a series of books by Maud Hart Lovelace. She showed it to me and asked if I would be interested. She wanted some assurance, I guess, that if she ordered these books I would read them. The ad, from Bambergers department store in Newark, New Jersey, was intriguing. It promised stories about two girls, Betsy and Tacy, who are best friends. So I told my mother, yes, I would like to read them. I understood that this was different than taking books out of the library. If I started a library book and didn’t like it, I could take it back. This was a commitment. We didn’t just go to the bookstore to buy children’s books then, though I was proud of the shelves of grown-up books in our living room. My mother was always reading, usually the latest bestsellers, and my father unwound at night with mysteries. A neat stack of books sat on each of their bedside tables.

  Though I owned all the Oz books (and would eventually buy a Nancy Drew mystery each Saturday), I loved our weekly trips downtown to the main branch of the public library, where I climbed a set of rickety outside stairs to get to the children’s room. Once there, I would sit on the floor, sniff the books, and browse. At home, I waited anxiously for the Betsy-Tacy books to arrive. And when they did, I sniffed them to see if they smelled as good as the books I borrowed from the public library. They did. Even better.

  I’d always liked to read, but until the Betsy-Tacy books I’d never found stories about girls who were anything like me and my friends. Even though I knew from the start the books took place in the olden days, the characters felt so real it didn’t matter what they wore, or how they fixed their hair, or that they thought a dollar was a lot of money. In fact, I found these details fascinating. I couldn’t wait to read the next book or the one after that, following Betsy Ray’s life. Betsy sometimes made mistakes, she sometimes talked too much. She could be stubborn, or angry, or sad. Best of all, she had a lot of imagination. I totally identified with her. She was a girl who’d been making up stories all her life, just like me. Until then I was sure I was the only one. But unlike Betsy, I never told anyone about my stories. And I never wrote them down, either.

  I’d think about Betsy and her friends as I went to bed at night, wondering what would happen next. I didn’t care that they were only five years old at the beginning of the first book. I never felt that I was reading a baby book. Besides, I knew that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were going to grow older in each book. I knew that they’d soon be older than me. And I didn’t want to miss a minute. I needed to know as much about them as I possibly could. I longed to know them as well as they knew each other.

  The following year my mother surprised me with the next three books in the series. Now Betsy was a teenager. Given the chance, I’d have jumped right into the pages of those books to share the famous “Sunday Night Lunches” at Betsy’s house. And afterward, to gather around the piano with Betsy and her friends, singing for hours. It seemed to me that Betsy had a perfect life—good friends and a warm, secure, and loving family, where she knew someone was always on her side.

  While I didn’t feel the darker undercurrents I sometimes felt in my own family, or even in my own friendships, I still believed in Betsy. I laughed and cried and dreamed with her. I loved those books too much to ever do a book report on them. They weren’t for sharing. They were for keeping deep inside.

  Did Betsy inspire me to become a writer? After all, she knew when she was very young that’s exactly what she was going to be when she grew up, and she never changed her mind. But writing wasn’t on my mind when I was reading about her, so I would have to answer, probably not, although who can say where inspiration really comes from?

  I don’t know why I didn’t get to read the last three books in the series (Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy’s Wedding) when I was growing up. Surely I would have, if only I’d known about them. I read them recently for the first time. I was nervous as I opened to the first page. What if the stories didn’t hold up well? What if I couldn’t imagine girls today caring about Betsy? But I didn’t have to worry. I was swept into Betsy’s life the way I had been years ago. And by the time I read the final page of the last book, I was crying so hard my husband thought something terrible had happened. I explained it wasn’t sadness that was making me cry—it was finding friends I thought I’d lost.

  A whole generation of girls my age came to feel that Betsy was their friend. It’s comforting to know that no matter how many years go by, no matter how different things are today, what’s inside us is still the same. And what makes a good book hasn’t changed either. Some characters become your friends for life. That’s how it was for me with Betsy and Tacy.

  —JUDY BLUME

  Hills were higher then

  —HUGH MAC NAIR KAHLER

  1

  Getting to Be Ten

  BETSY, TACY, AND TIB were nine years old, and they were very anxious to be ten. “You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It’s the beginning of growing up,” Betsy would say.

  Then the three of them felt solemn and important and pleased. They could hardly wait for their birthdays.

  It was strange that Betsy and Tacy and Tib were in such a hurry to grow up, for they had so much fun being children. Betsy and Tacy lived on Hill Street which ran straight up into a green hill and stopped. The small yellow cottage where Betsy Ray lived was the last house on that side of the street, and the rambling white house opposite where Tacy Kelly lived was the last house on that side. They had the whole hill for a playground. And not just that one green slope. There were hills all around them. Hills like a half-opened fan rose in the east behind Betsy’s house. Beyond the town and across the river where the sun set there were more hills. The name of the town was Deep Valley.

  Tib didn’t live on Hill Street. To get to Tib’s house from the place where Betsy and Tacy lived, you went one block down and one block over. (The second block was through a vacant lot.) But Tib lived near enough to come to play with Betsy and Tacy. She came every day.

  “They certainly have fun, those three,” Betsy’s mother used to say to Betsy’s father.

  They did, too.

  Betsy’s big sister Julia played with Tacy’s sister Katie, but they didn’t have so much fun as Betsy and Tacy and Tib had. They were too grown-up. They were twelve.

  Betsy’s little sister Margaret, Tacy’s younger brother Paul, and Tib’s yellow-headed brothers, Freddie and Hobbie, had fun all right, but not so much fun as Betsy and Tacy and Tib had. They were too little.

  Going on ten seemed to be exactly the right age for having fun. But just the same Betsy and Tacy and Tib wanted to be ten years old.

  They were getting near it now. Betsy and Tacy were growing tall, so that their mothers were kept busy lengthening their dresses. Tib wasn’t as tiny as she used to be, but she was still tiny. She st
ill looked like a picture-book fairy. The three girls had cut their hair when they were eight years old and didn’t know any better, but it had grown out. Tib’s curls once more made a yellow fluff around her little face. Tacy had her long red ringlets and Betsy had her braids again.

  “When I’m ten,” said Betsy, “I’m going to cross my braids in back and tie them with ribbons.”

  “I’m going to tie my hair at my neck with a big blue bow,” Tacy replied.

  “We can’t put it up in pugs quite yet, I suppose,” Betsy said.

  “But pretty soon we can,” said Tacy. “On top of our heads.”

  Tib did not make plans like that. She never did.

  “I only hope,” she said, “that when I get to be ten years old people will stop taking me for a baby.”

  For people always thought that Tib was younger than she was. And she didn’t like it a bit.

  Tacy got to be ten first because her birthday came in January. They didn’t have many birthday parties at Tacy’s house. There were too many children in the family. Mrs. Kelly would have been giving birthday parties every month in the year, almost, if every child at the Kelly house had had a party every birthday. But when Tacy was ten, Betsy and Tib were invited to supper. There was a cake with candles on it.

  Tacy didn’t look any different or feel any different.

  But she knew why that was. Betsy and Tib weren’t ten yet.

  “We’ll all have to get to be ten before it really counts, I suppose,” Tacy said.

  Tib got to be ten next because her birthday came in March. Tib didn’t have a birthday party; she had the grippe instead. But she was given a bicycle, and her mother sent pieces of birthday cake over to Betsy and Tacy.

  And Tib didn’t look any different or feel any different. But she didn’t expect much change until Betsy got to be ten. And Betsy’s birthday didn’t come until April.

  Tacy and Tib didn’t say very much about being ten. They were too polite. They talked about presents and birthday cakes, but they didn’t mention having two numbers in their age. They didn’t talk about beginning to grow up until the afternoon before Betsy’s birthday.

  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.

&nbs
p; 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!”