Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (28 page)

But, she wondered, was there time for Joe's achievements to impress themselves on the minds of the boys and girls waiting dumbfoundedly to vote? If they had time, she knew that his chance would be
good. If time was lacking, she feared that, like sheep, they would ignore Hazel Smith because she was a girl and vote unthinkingly for “an outstanding boy and a swell athlete, Dave Hunt.”

Betsy couldn't, she told herself desperately, bear to have Dave win, even though she liked him. Dave already had so much. Joe must win! He must! She looked toward him and saw proudly that he was taking the issue in stride. He looked poised and cool. But she knew that he must have been surprised by Tony's breath-taking nomination, and cut by the silence in which it was received.

Someone moved that the nominations be closed. Ballots were distributed, written, and collected. Excitement played like lightning over the room when Stan stood up to announce the results. He was grinning widely.

“The new class president…” he said, and paused. “The new class president,” he repeated, speaking slowly, “is Joe Willard.”

The applause, which had been lacking before, broke out wildly then. Joe looked flustered, although he was still in command of himself. In response to the cries which rose above the clapping hands, he got to his feet, smiled, and nodded.

Then, in a quick, boyish, heart-warming gesture of gratitude and pleasure, he flung both arms above his head and waved his hands. The applause changed as
though at a signal from handclaps to yells, the shrill sweet treble of the girls, a deep chorus of “Yee-ah, Joe!” from the boys.

Betsy's heart swelled. Joe, who had never had time for school politics, who had never had a home to entertain in or parents to entertain for him, who had always held proudly aloof from social life because he was poor. Joe had received the greatest honor his class had to offer. She was grateful to Tony for having thought of it. The idea had never once entered her own head.

After the meeting ended, she sought out Tony.

“That was wonderful, Tony. I don't know why we've never thought of Joe before for a class office,” she said.

“I think, myself, it was smart,” Tony answered, looking pleased with himself. “He's got more sense than most of these small-timers. He's been around.”

That, Betsy thought, was the explanation of why Tony had nominated Joe. He was pleased to see a fellow outsider take command. He had known that Joe only needed to be presented, to be recognized as a leader.

Tony didn't know, she felt sure, that she had any special feeling for Joe. He hadn't done it for her sake, which made it all the nicer.

“It was wonderful,” she repeated, smiling at him warmly, and crossed the room to congratulate Joe.

I
F ANYTHING HAD BEEN
needed to make the start of the senior year happy, Joe's new honor supplied it for Betsy. She was gloriously happy. She had never, she thought, been so happy in her life.

Joe started class business rolling by appointing a committee on class pins and caps. Oddly enough, Betsy Ray was on the committee. As president, Joe
was ex-officio member of all committees, and so he joined the group which went down to Alquist's Clothing Store looking for caps. After much hilarious trying on, the committee decided to recommend skull caps made up in the class colors of violet and gray. The committee then renewed its strength at Heinz's, with ice cream swimming in syrups, topped by whipped cream, nuts, and cherries.

The next day, Joe called a class meeting and the committee reported. The skull caps were approved, so the committee, and president, went back to Alquist's and ordered them, with more nourishment at Heinz's.

Still later they were obliged to go down to collect the caps, not neglecting Heinz's, of course. The caps were distributed, causing quite a flurry around school. Cameras snapped as seniors posed, singly and in groups.

“Dearest Chuck,” Tacy said to Tib, “you're a sensation in that cap.”

“Maddox will adore it, Sweet My Coz,” said Betsy.

“By my troth thou sayest true,” said Tib, placing the cap at an even jauntier angle.

All the seniors were talking in that vein, for Miss Bangeter's Shakespeare class had started to read
As You Like It
.

They wore the skull caps to the first football game,
the battle with Red Feather, and Maddox, bulking large in his fame and shoulder pads, did indeed cast appreciative glances. The girls went in a crowd, for most of the boys they knew were on the team, except Joe, who, of course, was covering the game for the
Sun
.

Joe didn't have much time for girls at football games. Bareheaded, enveloped in an ancient sweater, pencil in one hand, copy paper in the other, he jogged up and down the sidelines.

The girls did plenty of yelling, but all of it was in vain. In spite of Maddox, Deep Valley went down to ignominious defeat.

The team was weak this year. It did, indeed, miss Al. Dave Hunt was a fine player, but although tall he was very thin, and his long legs helped more at basketball than at football. Maddox had been good in practice, and early in the game he made one flashy touchdown. But he didn't do it again, and he didn't seem able to keep the Red Feather team from piling up a twenty-to-six score.

The home-going crowd was optimistic, however.

“Oh, Maddox just didn't get going!”

“That touchdown showed what he can do.”

“Didn't he look gorgeous running down the field?”

“We just have to have a good season,” said Betsy, “in our senior year.”

She was an incorrigible senior. About everything
she did, she kept thinking whether or not she would do it again.

There was something so familiar about September—golden fields clean-swept by harvest, sumac reddening along country roads, birds in great sociable flocks ready to fly south. The Crowd amused itself in the now time honored ways—going riding, going serenading, going on wiener roasts and beefsteak fries. Betsy kept thinking how different everything would be next year.

A pattern was breaking, never to be re-established. Part of it had already broken. Chauncey Olcott didn't come to Deep Valley this year.

His visit had been a regular autumn event as long as Betsy could remember. The Ray family had always gone in a body to hear him. This year an interloper named Fiske O'Hara came, in a play called
The Wearing of the Green
. Like the Olcott plays, it was an Irish romance full of ballads, which young O'Hara sang as Chauncey Olcott used to sing them.

The loyal Rays boycotted
The Wearing of the Green
. Anna would not go with her Charley. And although those fickle people who attended said that the newcomer was very handsome, with a sweet tenor voice, the Rays would have none of him.

“Don't bring those songs up to the house!” Betsy said to Tony.

“The copycat!” muttered Anna, rolling out cookies
as though she had Fiske O'Hara under the rolling pin.

The pattern was broken, too, because Julia was so far away, and in such strange surroundings.

A brief note had followed her letter about the Kaiser's reception.

“Darlings: Fraulein just came in from the 'phone, to tell me the biggest joke! I made a hit yesterday after all. One of the girls I met, the oldest of those three Von Hetternich sisters, wants to perfect her English, and her mother telephoned Fraulein to ask if I would come and stay with them awhile. Fraulein said it would not only give me a chance to learn German; it would enable me to get to know one of the first families in Berlin. Did you ever hear of such luck? P. S. My trunk has come.”

The next letter told about the Von Hetternichs' home.

“You could get lost wandering through it. There are drawing rooms, libraries, separate rooms for every meal, and every member of the family has a suite. I have a huge bedroom and share a little study with Else, the daughter of eighteen. I have a bathroom all my own, and a maid draws my bath every morning. Imagine that, Bettina!”

Julia described the three daughters, Else, Emma, and Eugenia. A brother, Else's twin, had left for boarding school. It was like living in a novel, she said.
To the Rays it was like a serial story. They could hardly wait from installment to installment, as Julia wrote of being petted and showered with presents, sent in a car to her lessons, to the theater, and opera.

The Rays were excited, but none of them was surprised when Julia wrote that the Von Hetternichs wished her to stay on as long as she lived in Berlin. The Countess wrote the formal invitation to Mrs. Ray. Else wrote a letter to Betsy which Julia enclosed in one of hers.

“Please, Bettina, when you reply, be careful to write plainly. English script is hard for her to read. And for heaven's sake, don't shock the dear prim soul! She never sees a man unless chaperoned to death and listens to my accounts of dances with awe.”

Betsy and Tacy were enthralled by Julia's adventures, but Tib was unmoved.

“I don't envy that Else,” she said. “Living in a palace, being chaperoned to death, isn't half so much fun as going to high school.”

Betsy thought she was right as the first senior party began to be talked of. Joe called a class meeting to discuss it. It would be a dance, of course. He appointed a committee to work out details, then gave Dave the chair and went off to the
Sun
.

Tony walked home with Betsy. The weather was
cool, with a spatter of rain in the air. They were glad to find a fire in the grate, and bringing in handfuls of cookies from the kitchen, they settled themselves on the hearth.

Tony had stretched out in a chair and Betsy was pulling a cushion as near to the fire as flying sparks permitted, when he said casually, “This dance they're planning…I'll drag you to it if you want to be dragged.”

Betsy felt a cold streak sinking through her body. Her disappointment was so intense that it almost brought tears to her eyes. She knew Joe would ask her to the party. In fact, she knew he took it for granted that he was going to take her. And it would be such joy to go with him! She would be proud, too, to show the school that they were going together.

But if she turned Tony down, he probably wouldn't go at all. He would hunt up some of those wild friends of whom her father disapproved. Besides, Tony had asked her first, and the rule required that she accept him.

She jumped up and started poking the fire.

“Why, that would be grand, Tony,” she said, her tone as casual as his had been. Tony was keen where people's feelings were concerned. She would have to be careful.

Fortunately, Margaret came in just then from her
piano lesson. She told Tony gravely that she had learned to play “Little Birdie Is Dead.” Tony asked her to play it for him, and she complied, which showed how much she liked him. Margaret detested performing.

Unlike Betsy, Margaret showed talent for the piano, and she was a better student in school than either of her sisters had been. But she had none of the ambition which burned in their breasts.

People were always saying to Margaret, “Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?”

Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, “I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?”

“Of course,” Betsy soothed her. But she could never understand.

Tony understood. He understood Betsy's ambition and Margaret's lack of it. Tony was such a darling, Betsy thought, watching his sleepily benignant look as Margaret played. She was glad she hadn't hurt his feelings, but she passed the rest of the afternoon with a sickish feeling inside.

Joe was both sensitive and proud. Once he had asked to take her home from a party, and again, to walk home from the library with her. On both occasions
she had had to turn him down and for months afterwards he had made no gesture toward her. Now they were so close, so happy together. She didn't think he would act like that, and yet…she didn't know.

About supper time Joe called up. His voice sounded cheerful.

“I've got an assignment tonight. Bell ringers. Down at the Presbyterian Church. Don't you think you could go, even though it's a school night? Bell ringers are highly educational.”

Betsy ran to ask her father and to her surprise he assented.

“I'm glad to have you hear some bell ringers, Betsy. There aren't very many of them any more. They're going out of style, like minstrel shows.”

This was astounding luck. Betsy would have been overjoyed except for that dread hanging over her.

They had a very good time. After the entertainment they went to Heinz's, and they talked hard and fast over their cocoa and on the cold walk home. They never seemed to tire of talking. In fact, they never seemed to tire of each other.

Betsy knew he enjoyed her, and she admired him beyond words. He had the beginning of a genuine culture based on his prodigious reading. He had read, she thought, everything. Not only older writers like Dickens, Thackeray, Balzac, Hawthorne, and
Washington Irving, but the stimulating newcomers: Jack London, Frank Norris, O. Henry. Tonight he was telling her about O. Henry's stories; his enthusiasm swept her along like the wind.

It wasn't until they reached her home and the fire that Joe brought up the senior dance. They had hung up their wraps and both were on cushions close to the dying embers. Joe had wanted to put on another log, but Betsy reminded him that the morrow was a school day.

“You can only stay until that last stick breaks in two, which it's just preparing to do.”

“Then,” he replied, “we must do some talking about the class party. By the way, Miss Ray, I'd like to have the honor of conducting you.”

Betsy felt herself flush. She swallowed and tried to keep her tone light.

“By the way, you're too late. Somebody asked me this afternoon.”

“What!” Joe started up sharply. “Who is it?”

“Tony.”

“Well, of all the nerve!” He sounded really angry, but then he said, “That Markham!” and his tone was milder, almost admiring. “Darn the guy!”

He was silent, frowning thoughtfully into the flickering fire. Then he turned and looked at her with teasing bright eyes.

“All right,” he said sternly. “Tony got ahead of me. And there's nothing I can do about it, except go to the dance stag. But after this, Miss Ray, you're going to go to all of the dances with me. This is a blanket invitation. I'll ask you separately, for each party, too, but remember, if someone gets ahead of me while Pm out earning my living, you have already been asked.”

Betsy laughed, but tremulously. “Why, Joe!”

He seemed pleased with himself. “Tony hasn't made any such proposition, has he?”

“No, but…”

“Then what's wrong with it? I have to protect myself, since I'm working every night and most of the weekends. Tony didn't think to make such an invitation or he'd have made it. Willard is smart, that's all. Well, what are you waiting for? You're going to accept, aren't you?”

Betsy was laughing, but she was so perilously close to tears that she stopped. She couldn't possibly agree to this plan, but how could she best explain the impossibility of it?

She looked away from him into the fire.

“I can't do it, Joe,” she said. “It isn't that I wouldn't like to. Please listen awfully hard and try to understand.”

She paused again, for loyalty to Tony would keep
her from telling the real reason. She couldn't mention her fears for him.

“Tony,” she said slowly, “is sort of a brother to us. He comes to our house as though it were his own. And we've been going to parties together off and on for years. I just couldn't freeze him out…of everything…like that.”

She stopped but Joe was silent.

“You know, don't you, Joe,” she said honestly, “that I'd rather go with you than anybody? I like Tony…too well to hurt him…but in a different way from the way I like you.”

As Joe still didn't reply, she added, “Take back that blanket invitation. You ask somebody else to the dance and we'll go to plenty of parties this winter if you'll just ask me quickly.”

Joe looked at her and slowly his clouded gaze cleared.

“All right,” he said, and laughed. “I'll play the field. I'll invite some other girl for this party and still another for the next one, unless you'll go with me yourself to the next one. Would it be fair to ask just one ahead?”

“Perfectly fair,” Betsy said.

“All right,” Joe repeated. “It's a date.”

The slender graying stick broke in the center, sending up a shower of sparks. Again Betsy and Joe felt
that accord between them. It would take more than a misunderstanding about Tony, Betsy realized, to break it up.