Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown Page 5

  After school Winona approached the three friends.

  “Can’t you come to my house to play?”

  “I’m sorry,” Betsy said. “We just can’t. The play’s done, and we’ve got to rehearse it. But I don’t know who we’ll get for Lady Clinton. In the ballroom scene she wears a velvet dress with a train and carries a peacock feather fan.”

  “I’ve got a peacock feather,” Winona said. “And my mother’s got a yellow velvet dress with a train. She’d let me wear it, I think.”

  “That would be peachy!”

  “If you only could!”

  There was an expectant pause.

  “But do you suppose you’d know how to repent?” asked Betsy. “It’s pretty hard. You have to carry on, I tell you.”

  She broke away from the rest, and clasped one hand to her forehead, the other to her heart beneath her sailor-suit pocket.

  “‘Oh, my children!’” she cried in a deep vibrant voice. “‘Forgive me! Forgive me! I can ask you now for I am dying! I am on my death bed! My brow is damp! …’ You’d have to weep real tears,” said Betsy, resuming her normal tone.

  Winona blinked.

  “I could,” she said. “You said yourself when we were playing statues that I was a regular actress.”

  “That’s right,” said Tacy.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter anyhow,” said Betsy. “For you’ll be busy tomorrow. You’ll be at Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

  Winona was thinking deeply.

  “Can’t that play possibly be postponed?” she asked.

  “Why should it be?” Betsy replied. “We haven’t anything else to do tomorrow.”

  “We’d sort of like to have something nice to do when Uncle Tom’s Cabin is in town,” Tacy admitted.

  “Then we won’t feel so bad about missing it,” Tib said.

  They could go no further.

  They looked at Winona fixedly, in silence. There was a trapped look in her black eyes. But after a moment she grinned nonchalantly.

  “Well, good-by,” she said. She skipped jauntily away.

  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib walked home on dragging feet. They did not even mention rehearsing for their play. All their interest in Lady Clinton, her sins and her repenting, had vanished.

  At first it had been real. They had not planned to use their play as a device for attracting Winona. But her interest in it had raised ecstatic hopes which now were dashed to the ground.

  They went to Tacy’s house and sat by the pump again, but it was dreary there today. The weather was changing. Clouds dimmed the sky. A cold wind scurried the dead leaves.

  Gyp ran up barking as though to ask merrily, “What about the play?” But they did not speak to him. They did not even throw a stick for him to retrieve.

  “Come over to play after supper?” asked Betsy when the Big Mill whistles blew.

  “I suppose so.”

  “I suppose we’ve got to rehearse.”

  “Sure.”

  But in their hearts they knew that they would not rehearse. They would not give their play. It was as dead as the leaves blowing down from the hill.

  Tomorrow in the Opera House the great painted curtain would rise on the glories of Uncle Tom’s Cabin … with them not there to see. Bloodhounds chasing Eliza, Topsy dancing, Little Eva dying and going to Heaven … and the three of them sitting at home. It was almost too much to bear.

  “I wish we could have made her invite us,” said Tib. Tears moistened her round blue eyes.

  Betsy and Tacy did not look at each other. They were not accustomed to failure.

  Julia came out on the front porch of the Ray house.

  “Betsy,” she called, sounding surprised. “Somebody wants to talk to you … over the telephone.”

  “The telephone!”

  Betsy could hardly believe her ears. She was never called to the telephone. She had spoken over it, of course, talking to her father down at his shoe store to test the miracle. But she had never received a call before. No one she knew had a telephone.

  At that point in her thoughts she remembered that someone she knew had a telephone, someone very important. Winona Root had a telephone.

  As though her feet had sprouted wings, Betsy leaped up the steps and into the house. Tacy and Tib flew after. She ran to the telephone, jumped up on the stool and took the dangling receiver into her hand.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello. Is this you, Betsy? This is Winona Root.”

  “Hello, Winona.”

  “Hello. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear you.”

  “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  After a pause, Winona said: “You know those ‘comps’ I’ve got for Uncle Tom’s Cabin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Four of them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I want you and Tacy and Tib to go with me.”

  “Oh, do you?” Betsy said.

  “Yes. I did all the time. I asked my father for four ‘comps’ just so’s I could take you.”

  Betsy could not answer.

  “We’re going to sit in a box,” Winona said.

  Still Betsy was speechless with delight.

  “Will you be at my house at twelve o’clock sharp?” Winona asked. “The matinee begins at two-thirty, and I like to get there early. I like to be out in front of the Opera House before the doors open, even.”

  Betsy felt a warmth of affectionate understanding, a warmth of fellowship. She had never been to a play before but she knew that she loved them just as Winona did.

  “We’ll be there,” she said. “At your house. At twelve.”

  She put the receiver reverently into its hook.

  5

  Uncle Tom’s Cabin

  ND SO BETSY, Tacy, and Tib went with Winona Root to see Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Instead of calling for Winona at noon, they called for her at half-past eleven. Since early morning all of them had been in a fever of impatience. They had started to get ready right after breakfast and had clamored for their dinners at ten o’clock. Their mothers were exhausted by the time the three girls, well scrubbed and wearing their Sunday best, rang the Root doorbell.

  Winona was waiting, as impatient as themselves. Shortly after noon the expectant four stood under the canopy of the Opera House. While they waited for the doors to open, Winona entertained them by describing the inside of the building. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib hung on every word.

  Outside, the Opera House was a large brick structure. It was a fine theatre for a town the size of Deep Valley. But Deep Valley was what is known as a good show town. It was a thriving county seat, and theatrical productions, passing from the Twin Cities to Omaha, found it a convenient and profitable one-night-stand.

  Winona finished her eloquent description. Children by the dozens had joined them. She rehearsed the stories of all the plays she had seen; still the big doors did not open. Out of the jostling crowd two boys came into view, climbing one of the pillars that supported the canopy. The girls recognized Tom Slade and Herbert Humphreys. At the same moment, the boys saw them.

  “So that’s who you took,” Herbert shouted to Winona, pointing at Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. He and Tom slid down the pillars and pushed their way through the crowd.

  “You certainly were hard up for someone to take,” said Tom.

  “We wouldn’t have gone with you, even if you’d asked us,” said Herbert.

  “Like fun you wouldn’t,” answered Winona, tossing her head.

  Winona liked Herbert, just as Betsy, Tacy, and Tib did. He had attractions other than his knickerbockers. He was a handsome boy with thick blond hair, a rosy skin, and lively blue eyes. Tom was dark with shaggy hair. Ever since Herbert came to Deep Valley, the two had been friends.

  “We’re going to sit up in the peanut heaven and eat peanuts,” said Tom.

  “And throw the shells at people in the boxes.”

  “Spitballs too, at the people who have ‘comps.’”

  “D
on’t you dare!” Winona said.

  They weren’t quarreling. The boys thought it was fun to be talking to the girls. And the girls felt as old as Julia and Katie. They joked and laughed … except Tacy who blushed and didn’t say much. Tacy wasn’t bashful with Tom because she had known him all her life but she was bashful with the glorious Herbert Humphreys.

  Herbert offered them peanuts and Tom pointed to a billboard picture that showed Eliza running across the ice with the bloodhounds almost at her throat.

  “I saw those dogs,” he said. “A man had them out walking this morning. He let me pet them.”

  “Pet them!”

  “Yes, but they’re plenty wild, he says. He says Buffalo Bill would give a fortune for them. He’s offered it, even, but the manager won’t sell.”

  “Did you see Miss Evelyn Montmorency?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Just America’s most talented and beautiful child actress, that’s all.”

  “Is that so, smarty?”

  “Who cares about her?” asked Herbert, hurling a peanut shell at the billboard where Little Eva was ascending into Heaven on the back of a milk-white dove.

  There was a rattle at the big entrance doors. They swung open, showing Sunny Jim’s smiling face. Children stampeded inside, toward the ticket window. Winona ignored the ticket window. With Betsy, Tacy, and Tib following her proudly, her ‘comps’ in her hand, she swaggered toward the inner door.

  “Hello, Mr. Kendall.”

  “Hello, Winona.”

  Winona and Betsy and Tacy and Tib were the first ones inside the house.

  They did not go at once to their box. First they raced all over the auditorium. It was elegant beyond even Winona’s descriptions and Betsy’s wildest dreams. A giant chandelier hung with glittering crystal drops was suspended from the ceiling. The seats were upholstered in red velvet. The boxes were hung with red velvet tied back with golden cords.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Winona asked, enjoying their stupefaction.

  “Oh, Winona! It’s wonderful! It’s grand!”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Winona acted as proud as though she and not Mr. Poppy had built it.

  She raced up to the balcony, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib running after her. They all ran down the aisle and leaned over the railing. Tib leaned so far that Betsy and Tacy held on to her skirts.

  Behind the balcony was the gallery where Tom and Herbert would sit.

  “Those seats are the cheapest. Ten cents. This show is a ten, twent, thirt. The balcony costs twenty. The dress circle costs twenty, too, and the parquet, thirty.”

  Dress circle! Parquet! What were they?

  They pelted back downstairs, and Winona pointed out the dress circle under the balcony. A low railing separated it from the parquet, down front. Where the dress circle met the parquet, in the very center of the house, were two wide, well-padded seats.

  “Those are Mr. and Mrs. Poppy’s seats. But they probably won’t be here this afternoon. They’ll come to the night show.”

  In this opinion Winona was mistaken. When she and her party reached their upper front box and, having explored its delights, seated themselves in the frail chairs overlooking the auditorium and stage, they saw Mrs. Poppy settling herself in one of the two spacious seats. She took out hatpins and lifted off a big plumed hat. Her hair shone like gold.

  “There’s Mrs. Poppy after all,” Betsy cried. “For such a fat lady, Mrs. Poppy’s pretty.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s nice too,” said Tib.

  Leaning out of the box, with Betsy and Tacy holding her skirts again, Tib waved. Mrs. Poppy did not see her at first, but having been poked by children in adjoining seats, she looked up. Then her smile was as bright as the diamonds in her ears. She waved happily back.

  There was a great deal of waving, calling, and whistling going on. Tom and Herbert whistled through their fingers and threw peanut shells as they had promised until the girls in the box stopped turning around.

  Betsy stopped turning around because somewhere down in the bowels of the Opera House violins were being tuned. She sat back rapturously and read her program through. Then she gave her attention to the curtain on which a gentleman in a sedan chair and beautiful ladies in hoop skirts were transfixed in a gay romantic moment. There was a flower booth behind them. There were some hens scratching at the front.

  A workman came out and crossed the stage. The audience clapped vociferously. Men filed into the orchestra pit. The children clapped some more. The boys in the gallery whistled and gave cat calls. Mrs. Poppy looked up at the box and put her hands over her ears for a joke. Winona, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib clapped harder than ever, laughing down at Mrs. Poppy.

  The orchestra started to play. It played sad tunes. Old Kentucky Home. Swanee River, Massa’s in de Cold Cold Ground. All over the house the lights went low. There were rainbow colors in the crystals of the great chandelier as the lights faded away. Then … oh, magic moment! … the curtain started to rise. Slowly, slowly, while the music kept on playing and the rainbow in the chandelier flickered out, forgotten, the curtain lifted. Betsy reached out for Tacy’s hand and squeezed it. She wanted to share this rapturous moment of the curtain going up.

  Sympathetically Tacy squeezed back. By now the full stage was revealed. They saw a Negro cabin. The slave Eliza sitting with her child …

  Betsy and Tacy still clasped hands but they forgot each other and everything but the play.

  The story unfolded in dramatic scenes which kept the four girls in a front upper box rigid with excitement. George, Eliza’s husband, ran away. Eliza, hearing that her child was to be sold, ran away too. She reached the icy river.

  “Better sink beneath its cold waters with my child locked in my arms than have him torn from me and sold into bondage!”

  The ferocious pack of man-eating Siberian bloodhounds leaped into view. (There were two in the pack.) Eliza took to the ice.

  “Courage, my child! We will be free … or perish!”

  Miraculously she escaped, and the party in the box relaxed, but only for a moment.

  Presently they were in the elegant St. Clare parlor. The languid Marie lay on the couch. Little Eva ran in, her yellow curls flowing about her.

  “Mamma!” she cried in a sweet piping voice.

  “Take care! Don’t make my head ache.”

  St. Clare came in, and good old Uncle Tom, and funny Aunt Ophelia with her corkscrew curls, and the comical Topsy.

  The audience laughed uproariously at Topsy.

  “I ’spect I growed,” she said. “Don’t think nobody never made me.”

  She sang a song about it.

  “Oh, white folks I was neber born,

  Aunt Sue, she raised me in de corn …”

  She danced her breakdown, and Tib poked Betsy. “I could do that,” she said.

  The waits between the acts of the play did not break the spell. A black-faced quartette sang plantation melodies, told jokes, and cakewalked. The girls did not talk very much. They waited for that moment of unfailing rapture when the curtain would go up.

  Little Eva hung garlands of flowers around the neck of Uncle Tom. She told him she was going to die.

  “They come to me in my sleep, those spirits bright. Uncle Tom, I’m going there.”

  “Where, Miss Eva?”

  “I’m going there, to the spirits bright. Tom, I’m going before long.”

  And in the next scene she expired, breathing, “O love, —joy, —peace.” Sad music played, and she was glimpsed in Heaven.

  Tacy’s weeping almost shook the box. Betsy joined her tears to Tacy’s, and Tib put her head into Betsy’s lap to cry. Even Winona cried, big brilliant tears that glittered in her eyes after the curtain went down.

  But there was worse to come.

  St. Clare died without signing the freedom papers for Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom was sold down the river. He was flogged by Simon Legree. Tacy kept her eyes shut tight, but that could not keep out the dreadful crack of the lash
.

  At the end the scene showed sunset clouds. Little Eva, robed in white, sat upon a milk-white dove. Her hands were extended over St. Clare, her father, and Uncle Tom, kneeling below. The music was stately. The curtain went slowly down.

  There was an uproar of applause and the curtain went up and down again, not once but many times. All the actors came out to bow, even those who had died in the play, which was very consoling.

  Uncle Tom came, and Tacy wiped her eyes and sniffed. St. Clare came, looking very handsome. And his wife, Marie, not lazy and complaining now, but smiling and happy.

  Aunt Ophelia came. And Topsy. And Simon Legree. When Simon Legree appeared the boys in the gallery hissed and booed, and Simon Legree laughed, and cracked his big whip.

  Little Eva, of course, came again and again, still wearing her heavenly robes, her yellow curls shining. She came with the entire cast, and she came with Uncle Tom, and with her father, and mother, and Topsy. She bowed to them and to the audience and smiled and kissed her hands.

  Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona clapped and cheered and pounded. At last the curtain came down to stay down. The play was over.

  “Didn’t I tell you it was good?” Winona asked. She seemed to feel that she had written the play and acted every part.

  Betsy didn’t mind. She felt warm inside toward Winona. Winona had given her this wonderful gift of the play. And Winona loved it just as she did.

  Reluctantly they put on their hats and jackets. Even as they had been the first to enter, they were the last to leave the Opera House. Everyone knew Winona … the ushers, the cleaning women. They greeted her cordially and she greeted them. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were awed and proud.

  “If you like,” said Winona grandly as they went through the big front doors, “we can go around in back and see Little Eva come out.”

  “Winona! Can we really?”

  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were almost overwhelmed with the magnificence of this idea.

  “Of course. I do it often,” Winona said nonchalantly.

  She led them around the side of the Opera House. A small crowd of children had preceded them. Herbert and Tom were there, but now they did not joke with the girls. Their eyes were burning; their talk was all of the show.