Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown Read online

  Betsy had been thinking deeply about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her heart yearned toward the play as it had never yearned toward anything before. The longing was a little like what she felt when she saw rows and rows of books in other people’s bookcases. (She had read all the books in the bookcase at home.) But this feeling was stronger and more violent. She had to go to Uncle Tom’s Cabin! She had to!

  It was more than possible that if she asked her father, he would let her go. But then, what about Tacy? Tacy’s father ruled his kingdom of children with a kindly but inflexible justice. What one child had, all of them had, or its equivalent. What one child did, all of them did. He would not send Tacy to a matinee at the Opera House unless he could afford to send Katie and Paul too. As for Tib, she might not be allowed to go. Tib’s mother was strict. And for Betsy to see Uncle Tom’s Cabin without Tacy or Tib would be a hollow joy.

  If all three were invited to go as Winona’s guests, the situation would be different. That would be a party; they could accept, of course. Somehow the three of them had to be invited. But Betsy was empty of ideas.

  Tib was hopeful that the matter could be arranged.

  “Let’s try my plan,” she said, “of telling her we want to go and offering her presents.”

  “No,” said Betsy. “At least, let’s not say right out that we want to go. If we do that, and she doesn’t take us, she can laugh at us. We might give her the presents though, in a careless kind of way.”

  “Let’s do what I suggested,” said Tacy. “Ask her to play after school. And while we’re being nice to her, just hand out a few presents.”

  “All right,” Betsy said. “I certainly hope it works.”

  They jumped up then to help Paul with the bonfire. Tib’s brothers, Freddie and Hobbie, and Margaret and the Rivers children were helping him too. Paul’s black and brown mongrel dog, Gyp, was rushing about through the leaves. The children threw sticks which he retrieved with happy snorts. They had a good time, but through it all Betsy thought with longing about Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  At recess the next day she said to Winona, “Come on and play with us.”

  “Let’s play statues,” said Tacy. “I always think you’re good at statues, Winona.”

  “You can make such awful faces,” said Tib.

  Winona looked suspicious but flattered.

  “All right,” she said, and they played statues. When Tacy flung Winona, she called out “Cross schoolteacher!” And Winona’s scowling face between locks of black hair, her fiercely upraised finger were pronounced magnificent.

  “You’re practically an actress, Winona,” Betsy said. “It’s probably because you go to so many plays.”

  “You’re certainly lucky,” said Tacy.

  “I should say you are,” said Tib.

  The bell rang, and Betsy said, “Why don’t you come home with us after school? You’ve never been to see us. We could have lots of fun.”

  Winona’s eyes glittered with dawning comprehension.

  “All right,” she replied. “I’d just as soon.”

  Winona enjoyed herself that afternoon. They went to Betsy’s house first and urged Winona to telephone her mother over the Rays’ new telephone. It was fixed into the wall beside the dining-room door. Winona had to climb on a stool to reach it. She rang the bell, lifted the receiver and said “Hello Central” with an assurance that her companions envied. Her mother was surprised to hear from her.

  Afterwards they played a game of Ping-Pong. (Winona’s side won, of course.) They took her out in the kitchen and introduced her to Rena, red cheeked and pretty with ribbons woven into the braid that was knotted behind her pompadour. Rena gave them some rocks she had baked that morning. These were little cakes full of raisins and nuts and were very good.

  Betsy put the agate marble secretly into her pocket. They crossed the street to Tacy’s house.

  There they made Gyp do his tricks for Winona. He fetched and carried willingly. They showed Winona Tacy’s father’s violin. And Mrs. Kelly, who did not know that they had had rocks over at the Rays’, gave them some fat ginger cookies. Tacy slipped upstairs for her Gibson Girl picture. She had traced it and colored it and framed it in passepartout. She put it under her skirt, and they all went on to Tib’s house.

  Tib offered Winona a ride on her bicycle. Winona had a bicycle of her own, of course, but she enjoyed riding Tib’s. They took her all over Tib’s beautiful house. As they came down the curving front stairs, Betsy pointed out the panes of colored glass in the entrance door. They went into the front parlor that was round because it was a tower room, and through blue velvet draperies into the back parlor where the window seat was, and through the red and gold dining room into the kitchen.

  Matilda did not know they had had rocks to eat at the Rays’ and ginger cookies at the Kellys’. She gave them some apple cake, and they took it out to the knoll.

  While the others were eating under the oak tree, Tib skipped into the house and upstairs to her room. She came back bearing the Schlitz beer calendar that her uncle had sent her from Milwaukee. It had a picture on it of a pretty girl skating. It said, “The beer that made Milwaukee famous.”

  Tib looked with raised questioning eyebrows at Betsy who signaled to Tacy who nodded. Simultaneously the Schlitz beer calendar, the Gibson Girl picture, and the agate marble were thrown into Winona’s lap.

  “Some presents for you, Winona,” Betsy said.

  For just a moment Winona looked startled.

  “It isn’t my birthday,” she said.

  “Oh, we just thought you might like them,” said Betsy.

  “You don’t come to see us very often, so we thought we’d give you some presents,” said Tacy.

  “That’s the only reason,” said Tib. “Really it is.”

  Winona’s eyes shone now with full understanding. “Oh,” she said. “Thanks. This is a spiffy calendar. Gee, this is a good copy of a Gibson Girl. I haven’t got a marble like that.”

  Then she jumped up.

  “Well,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to be going.”

  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib looked at one another.

  “Come over again,” said Tib.

  “What are you doing Saturday?” asked Betsy.

  “Saturday?” repeated Winona. “Saturday? Oh, I remember! I’m going to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

  “Decided who you’re going to take?” asked Tacy.

  “No,” said Winona. “Quite a lot of people want to go. Well, good-by!”

  “Good-by,” said Betsy and Tacy and Tib.

  They watched glumly while Winona skipped off with heartless jauntiness bearing the agate marble, the Gibson Girl picture, and the Schlitz beer calendar.

  The situation was getting really desperate. This was Wednesday. Tomorrow would be Thursday. Friday was the last day before the matinee.

  “Tomorrow,” said Betsy. “We’ll try my plan. We won’t pay a bit of attention to her. Just snub her good and hard.”

  Tacy and Tib agreed reluctantly.

  “It seems awfully dangerous,” said Tacy. “Can we risk it?”

  “We’ve got to,” Betsy answered.

  So the next day they snubbed Winona all day long. But it didn’t help, because she didn’t even notice it; she was too busy having a good time with other children who wanted to go to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She was decked with a thorn apple necklace that Alice had made. And she was letting everybody listen to a seashell that Herbert Humphreys’ aunt had sent him from Boston, and she wore someone’s gift of a peacock feather in her long black hair. When she ran at recess it floated out behind her. It suited her somehow.

  She barely glanced at Betsy and Tacy and Tib. When she did look their way, it was only to see whether they were noticing her triumphs. They were.

  Tib forgot her pride to ask with pretended casualness: “Decided who you’re going to take to the matinee, Winona?”

  “Haven’t thought about it,” Winona said.

  She called Alice and pulled out B
etsy’s agate marble.

  “Want to trade?” she asked.

  Betsy and Tacy and Tib conferred after school in the depths of discouragement. Beside Tacy’s pump they lay on their backs and looked up sadly at the glory of the hills.

  “We might as well give up,” said Betsy. Then in a fierce resentment of the disappointment that filled her body like an ache, she sat suddenly upright. “I know what let’s do! Let’s give a play ourselves.”

  “We often do that,” said Tib. “It’s fun, but it isn’t like going to a play with bloodhounds in it.”

  “We can put bloodhounds in our play,” cried Betsy. “At least we can put a dog in it. We can put Gyp in it!” Gyp heard his name and came running, leaping and barking as though stage struck.

  “What play shall we give?” asked Tacy, brightening.

  “I’ll turn my novel into a play.”

  “The Repentance of Lady Clinton?”

  “The Repentance of Lady Clinton. It will make a spiffy play. Before she repents, Lady Clinton gets chased by this dog. Across some chunks of ice, maybe. I haven’t decided.”

  “If there was a girl like Topsy doing a dance,” said Tib. “I could black my face and dance.”

  “There is a girl like Topsy, but I think Tacy had better play that part, because we need you for another part. There’s a girl like Little Eva in it too, and she dies and goes to Heaven. We’ll have to pull her up to the ceiling, and you’ll be light to pull.”

  “How’ll we manage it?”

  “We’ll manage. And I’ll ask my mother if we can use the costumes out of Uncle Keith’s trunk.”

  “Where shall we give this play?” asked Tib.

  “Let’s ask your mother if we can give it at your house. We could draw the curtains between the front and back parlors, and use the parlor for the audience to sit in, and the back parlor for the stage. We could use the dining room for a dressing room; close the sliding doors. It would be perfect.”

  “Do you think she’ll let us?”

  “We can ask her,” said Tib. “Let’s all go ask her now.”

  They bounced off the pump platform and ran down Hill Street and through the vacant lot to Tib’s house.

  Mrs. Muller gave her consent with surprising readiness.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Matilda and I haven’t housecleaned downstairs yet. You may get those rooms good and dirty before we go to work. When do you want to give your play?”

  “As soon as we can get it ready.”

  “The sooner, the better,” Mrs. Muller said.

  They raced back to the Ray house and asked Mrs. Ray whether they might use the costumes from Uncle Keith’s trunk.

  Uncle Keith was Mrs. Ray’s brother, and no one knew where he was. Betsy had never seen him, but she had heard about him all her life.

  He had run away to go on the stage when he was only seventeen. Like his sister, Betsy’s mother, he was redheaded, spirited, and gay, and he had quarreled with their stepfather, a grim man who had not approved of the boy’s lightheartedness. He had gone with a Pinafore company and had never come back. When the Spanish-American War broke out, he must have enlisted; at any rate, at just that time, his trunk came unexpectedly to Betsy’s mother’s house. Years had passed, but it had never been called for. And Keith had never come home.

  Mrs. Ray’s face shadowed when Betsy asked to use the costumes. But after a moment she smiled.

  “Why not?” she said. “I can’t imagine Keith objecting. And it would do the things good to be aired.”

  She went to the little garret off Rena’s bedroom, and Rena and the children helped her pull out a flat-topped, foursquare trunk.

  “A real theatrical trunk,” said Mrs. Ray as she unlocked it and threw back the lid.

  A smell of camphor greeted twitching noses.

  Betsy had seen the trunk opened before. It was always opened spring and fall at housecleaning time. But she never ceased to thrill to the depths of her being when she touched the big plumed hats, the wigs, the velvet coats.

  Mrs. Ray’s eyes filled with tears as she lifted out the gay trappings, but she winked and kept on smiling.

  “There!” she said. “You may help me put them on the line, and after you’ve used them I’ll pack them away again. When do you plan to give your play?”

  “Next week probably,” Betsy replied.

  She and Tacy and Tib were so enchanted with the costumes that they almost forgot about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The next day, Friday, they hardly spoke to Winona. They were too busy making plans with one another. And Betsy was busy writing. She carried one of those notebooks that said on the cover: “Ray’s Shoe Store. Wear Queen Quality Shoes.” She wrote in it all through recess.

  Winona glanced at her curiously once or twice, and at last she came close.

  “How do you happen to be studying at recess?”

  “I’m not studying,” said Betsy.

  “She’s writing a play,” said Tacy.

  “The Repentance of Lady Clinton,” said Tib. “We’re giving it in my parlor.”

  “Pooh!” said Winona. “I’m going to a real play tomorrow.”

  “It isn’t any realer than this one is,” said Betsy. “We’re not charging any old pin admission, I can tell you that. We’re charging five and ten cents. Ten cents for the reserved seats … the rocking chairs. We’re going to have velvet draperies for curtains, and we’re going to wear real actors’ costumes.”

  “Where you going to get them?”

  “Out of a theatrical trunk. My uncle was an actor, and we’ve got his trunk at home. It has tights in it, and wigs, and coats with gold braid.”

  Other children paused to listen. Now Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona were the center of a crowd.

  “Pooh!” said Winona again. “I guess you haven’t any bloodhounds.”

  “I guess we have,” said Betsy. “We’re going to use Gyp … you saw him … for a bloodhound. He’s going to chase Lady Clinton over cakes of ice in Tib’s back parlor.”

  Tib shuddered. She did not know how her mother would like cakes of ice on the back-parlor carpet.

  “Is he?” Winona demanded, turning to Tib.

  “Pay a nickel, and you’ll find out,” Tacy cut in quickly, knowing how regrettably honest Tib was.

  “That’s right. If you don’t believe us, just come to the show,” said Tib, much relieved.

  “I’m going to black my face,” said Tacy, “and do my hair in pigtails.”

  “And I’m going to die and go to Heaven right on the stage,” said Tib.

  “It sounds to me,” cried Winona angrily, “as though you were just copying me and having Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

  “Well,” replied Betsy. “We’re not. This is a play we made up ourselves. It’s called The Repentance of Lady Clinton.”

  “Who’s going to be Lady Clinton?” Winona asked.

  Tib started to say, “Betsy,” but at that moment she got two pokes, one from each side, one from Betsy and one from Tacy.

  Betsy and Tacy had seen in Winona’s face something that gave them a glimmer of hope. Inspired by the pokes, Tib looked and saw it too.

  Winona was more interested in this play than she was in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. After all, she went to plays at the Opera House often.

  “Who’s going to be Lady Clinton?” she repeated in an urgent voice.

  Betsy looked at Tacy, and Tacy looked at Betsy.

  “We haven’t decided,” said Tacy carelessly.

  “We’ve got to be careful whom we pick,” said Betsy. “It’s a very important part. She’s got to be dark. Lady Clinton is a whopping villainess, you know. And all villainesses are dark.”

  “She needs long black hair.”

  “And black eyes.”

  “And white teeth,” said Tib, staring at Winona. Winona laughed.

  “Sounds sort of like me,” she said, tossing her head.

  “Oh, but it couldn’t be you,” said Betsy. “Because we’re giving it Saturday afternoon.”
/>   “No, Betsy,” broke in Tib.

  “Why, yes we are,” said Tacy, jabbing Tib violently. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Why do you have to give it Saturday?” asked Winona mistrustfully.

  “Mrs. Muller wants us to give it before she housecleans downstairs. ‘The sooner, the better,’ she said. And we can get it up tomorrow if we hurry. I must get this finished, though.” Betsy licked her pencil industriously. “The first scene is at Lord Patterson’s ball.”

  At noon Betsy, Tacy, and Tib left the schoolhouse arm in arm. Winona joined them.

  “Talking about your play?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Betsy. “We’re planning how we’ll get Tib up to Heaven. If they get Little Eva up to Heaven at the Opera House, we ought to be able to do it with Tib in her back parlor. Do you know how they do it at the Opera House, Winona?”

  “I can find out Saturday.”

  “That will be too late to do us any good,” Betsy said regretfully.

  “We could tie a rope to the gas chandelier,” suggested Tacy. “When Tib dies, she could just shinny up.”

  “That doesn’t seem very dignified,” said Betsy.

  “Besides,” said Tib. “I don’t think Papa would like it. I might pull the chandelier down.”

  “She could climb up a ladder and sit there,” Winona said. “You could decorate the ladder with pink tissue paper and make it look just like Heaven.”

  “That’s a marvelous idea!” cried Betsy. “We could draw angels and cut them out and pin them to the ladder.”

  “And doves.”

  “And harps.”

  They looked at Winona with spontaneous admiration.

  At recess that afternoon Betsy wrote on her play again.

  “How’s it coming?” asked Winona, prancing by.

  “Gee whiz!” said Betsy. “The trouble this Lady Clinton has!”

  “Going to get it done for tomorrow?”

  “You bet!”

  Betsy scribbled furiously.