Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (41 page)

But Betsy couldn't go into that, even with Julia.

She asked about the Von Hetternichs.

“They were wonderfully kind, but I got bored with my life there. Rich people's lives are very stuffy. I grew to love the girls, of course, but what made the winter really glorious was my work.”

She talked with the old contagious enthusiasm about operas and operatic roles, where and when she would make her debut.

“It can't be for a long time. I've so much to learn. You've no idea how much.”

“When are we going to hear you sing?”

“Not until I've had a chance to practise. And I want you all to understand that I'm just a beginner.”

The next day the sun came out and the curtains in the Ray house were hung at sparkling windows. The kitchen was fragrant with the smell of spice cake baking. Neighbors dropped in, the Poppys, the Crowd.

A boy from Windmiller's Florist Shop came with a long box for Julia. She looked at the card.

“He's absolutely dippy,” she said, throwing it down.

“Who's
he
? Who's
he
?” Betsy and Tib demanded.

“Someone I met on the boat. A New York man.”

She didn't even open the box, but the others did, squealing. It held a forest of American Beauty roses.

“And I thought that for once you didn't have a beau,” Betsy said jokingly.

“Well,” said Julia, “I didn't in Berlin. Not exactly, that is. Of course,” she added, “Else had a twin brother but he was just nineteen. And I didn't give him a bit of encouragement.”

“Oh, didn't you!” Betsy scoffed.

Julia was still Julia, only more so. That night she played the piano and Betsy stood beside Joe to sing. Everything was wonderful! she thought. Julia had come home to see her graduate. She and Joe were going together. If only she could know that Tony was all right…somewhere!

The next day, when Betsy came home from the Opera House where she had been practising her oration, she found Margaret waiting in front of the house.

Margaret was standing as straight as a tulip, and a smile spread across her small freckled face.

“Betsy!” she cried. “I thought you'd never get home. I've had a letter from Tony.”

“Margaret!” Betsy pounced upon her.

“He wants to correspond with me,” said Margaret, trying not to sound proud.

“Where is he?” Betsy asked eagerly.

“He's in New York. He's an actor, like Uncle Keith.”

“An actor!”

“He's on the stage, and he likes show business. He says it's the life.”

Betsy sat down on the steps abruptly.

“Margaret,” she said, “I don't believe I was ever so happy in my life!”

Margaret sat down beside her, after dusting off a little place to sit on and spreading the skirts of her stiffly starched gingham neatly beneath her.

“I'll read you his letter if you like,” she said, drawing it out of her pocket. She did not give it to Betsy, but read it slowly and carefully aloud.

“‘Dear Margaret, I wonder whether you would like to correspond with me? I'd certainly like to have some news of you and the rest of the gang.

“‘I'm in New York. I'm in a musical show called
Lulu's Husbands
. I'm in the chorus now but Maxie thinks I'll be doing better soon. He thinks I can sing comic bass roles.

“‘That Maxie (he's Mrs. Poppy's brother) wasn't fooling when he said he knew Broadway. I wired him from Minneapolis—couldn't do it in Deep Valley for fear of someone tattling. He said he could get me a job here, and he did.

“‘Tell Betsy not to worry about my not graduating. A high school diploma doesn't matter in show business. And I like show business. It's the life! I've told my folks, and everything's hunky dory.

“‘Betsy will be graduating along about now. See that she uses that curling iron! Give her my love, will
you? Give my love to all the Rays. They don't make cakes like Anna's in New York or sandwiches like your father's.

“‘I'm depending on you, Margaret, to tell me all the news. Love, Tony.'”

“There's a postscript, too,” said Margaret, as Betsy did not speak. “He's sending me a Statue of Liberty to put on my bureau.”

J
ULIA'S FINGERS HAD LOST
none of their magic when it came to dressing Betsy's hair. She dressed it in a Psyche knot—all the rage in Paris—for the Assembly Tuesday night at which the Essay Cup would be awarded. Betsy was wearing the pale blue Class Day
dress, for she would be sitting on the platform, and she might…she just might…have to rise and bow as a winner.

Joe was in a fever for fear she wouldn't win.

“I can't stand it, if you don't. I'll cut my throat. Of course, you know, it's not of the slightest importance….”

“Then why,” Betsy wanted to know, “would you cut your throat?”

“Oh, well! I know you want to win the darn thing.”

“I shan't care at all if I don't. And I don't expect to. After all, I was competing against that Joseph Willard who signs his stories for the Minneapolis
Tribune
.”

But she won. Standing on the platform, before a roaring assembly, decorated in orange and turquoise blue, Betsy received her class points. Miss Bangeter smiled when she announced it.

Joe, clapping vociferously, joined in the Zetamathian cry:

“What's the matter with Betsy? She's all right.”

He even started to join the chant, “Poor old Philos! Poor old Philos!” but he caught himself in time.

The Zetamathians won the cup, which gave them two out of three. All the Zets were happy about that. And other Philos than Joe were pleased that Betsy had won at last. Winona looked almost as happy as
Tacy and Tib. Miss Fowler was radiant and Miss Clarke wiped her eyes.

The next night, Class Day, was Tib's night of glory. She played the lead in
A Fatal Message
with triumphant success. The play came last on a crowded program. Preceding it, various members of the Class of 1910 delivered the Class Will, the Class Prophecy. Everyone was ribbed and slammed.

Betsy Ray was supposed to will a curling iron to a straight-haired sophomore. Tib willed all the junior boys to the junior girls. It was prophesied that Tacy would demonstrate a henna rinse, that Hazel would become the first woman president.

Cab, who had come to share in the fun, enjoyed it all hugely. He was wearing a new gray tailor-made suit.

“See?” he said to Betsy. “I can have the suit if I can't have the diploma.”

He joined the Crowd, which swarmed into the Ray house afterwards for one of Julia's rarebits.

Commencement Day, that never-to-be-forgotten third of June, dawned hot.

“Shades of my ancestors!” Betsy wrote in her journal. “Such a day!”

The telephone kept ringing, for all the girls in the Crowd had to confer. The doorbell kept ringing, too, as presents arrived. There was a telegram of congratulations to Betsy from Julia's man. There were red roses from Joe.

Betsy rehearsed her oration to Miss O'Rourke in the Opera House. She rehearsed it again to Julia, who made some suggestions about putting in expression. Betsy ignored them. She went about muttering, “The heroines of Shakespeare were essentially human….”

Tacy sang “Sylvia” for Julia, who gave her some pointers straight from Berlin. Tacy tried to profit by them but she was getting nervous. Her eyes had a hunted look and she swallowed with difficulty.

Tib alone was completely carefree; she had done her chore the night before.

“Nothing to do now but collect my diploma!” she said airily.

“Get out of our sight!” Betsy and Tacy moaned.

There was an early supper at the Rays', so Betsy could start dressing. This was the first appearance of the graduation dress. It was a fine white voile, trimmed with yards of lace and insertion, ankle-length, with elbow sleeves.

Her mother, Margaret, and Anna watched while Julia dressed Betsy's hair.

“Too bad to spoil it with a hat,” Betsy said. But, of course, she had to. A pale blue picture hat with the sweeping pale blue plume Julia had sent from Paris. Her father held her pale blue opera cape and Anna brought out Joe's red roses, which she had been keeping fresh in the ice box.

Anna watched glumly as Betsy revolved.

“What's the matter, Anna? Don't I look all right?”

“Of course, lovey. You look even punier than the McCloskey girl did. But when Margaret graduates, I'm going to marry Charlie.”

“Anna! You wouldn't!” cried all the Rays together.

Betsy put on her long white gloves. She was wearing white slippers, also. They didn't go into a party bag tonight, for Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were riding to the Opera House in a hack! Mr. Thumbler called first for Tacy and Tib, and both of them were sitting inside, wearing picture hats and opera capes and carrying flowers, when the vehicle stopped at the Ray residence.

“We're late,” said Tib. “But it doesn't matter. Things can't begin without us because you two are both on the program. I have very important friends.”

“I wish they would begin without us. I wish they'd
finish
without us,” said Tacy through chattering teeth.

“Stop and think!” Betsy said. “We're graduating! Remember, Tacy, how you cried and went home on your first day of school? If I hadn't grabbed you and pulled you back, you might not be graduating now.”

“I wish I wasn't,” chattered Tacy.

“And if I hadn't come back from Milwaukee, I wouldn't be with you. I'm certainly glad I came,” said Tib.

The hack rolled down the hill to Second Street and
around to the back door of the Opera House. The girls were greeted by a burst of fragrance…from bouquets and the blossoming boughs with which the stage was decorated.

As they took off their hats and opera capes, Betsy kept muttering, “The heroines of Shakespeare were essentially human….” She wasn't so nervous as Tacy but she didn't feel exactly calm.

The Class of 1910 was brought to order, seated in ascending rows on the stage. Betsy and Tacy, because of being on the program, sat in the front row, and Miss Bangeter placed Tib there, too, right next to Betsy and Tacy. She said it was because Tib was so small.

Tib looked angelic in a white chiffon dress she had made with her own hands. It looked different from the other girls' dresses; Tib's clothes always did. Tacy's dress was organdy, very white and crisp, below her crown of auburn braids, her fear-struck eyes.

Down in the pit the high school orchestra started to play, “Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna.” The music made Betsy's heart shake.

“This is a very important occasion. It's momentous,” she kept thinking. But she couldn't seem to realize it, and slowly the curtain rose.

The graduates searched for their families seated in the auditorium. Betsy found her father, a pansy in his buttonhole, looking too cheerful; her mother, in a
new hat with roses, looking stern; Julia, in earrings, looking fascinating and foreign; and Margaret a picture of dignity. Anna didn't look glum any more. She was wearing her best hat with a bird on it.

Betsy saw the Kelly family, too, and Mr. Kerr; the Muller family; Joe's uncle and aunt.

She rose with the chorus and began to sing:

The joyful music filled the auditorium…and her breast.

But her nervousness increased as the program ran on. While Hazel, who preceded her, delivered her oration with the poise of a star debater, Betsy kept saying under her breath, “The heroines of Shakespeare were essentially human….” She couldn't remember what came after that. She hadn't the faintest idea.

When her turn came, she stepped to the front as if in a dream. The lights swam and the faces beyond the footlights blurred.

“The heroines of Shakespeare,” she began, “were essentially human….”

And when she had said that much she remembered it all. It came pouring out almost too rapidly. She drew a long breath, bowed quickly, and sat down.

She wished she could give some of her glad relief to Tacy, who now took the center of the stage. Tacy looked desperate. She couldn't retreat. She had to go on, so she did.

And, of course, she sang beautifully.

At the end an usher came hurrying down the aisle. He handed her a corsage of tiny white roses tied with a big bow and dripping with ribbons. She had already received flowers from her father. She went back to her seat, smiling, and Betsy and Tib leaned over.

“Mr. Kerr?” they asked.

Tacy blushed happily and nodded.

Oration followed oration. “For Pearls We Dive,” “The Farmer of the Twentieth Century,” “Factory Life for Women.” Joe came last with “The Bread Basket of the World.”

“As Whitman says, ‘The earth never tires.'” That was his beginning, and he told vividly of wheat rolling in a golden torrent from threshing machines, of mill wheels turning, of the middle west feeding the world. He spoke clearly and he didn't forget. But Betsy thought he was as near to being nervous as she had ever seen him. He went at a brisk pace back to his seat.

The President of the school board spoke. His topic was, “After Commencement Day, What?”

“An era in your life is ended,” he said, and Betsy, Tacy, and Tib regarded each other with bright mischievous eyes. They would have wiped away mock tears if they hadn't been sitting in the very front row. They all felt silly, they were so relieved to have the oration and the solo over.

But the truth of his statement dawned on Betsy presently.

He took his place behind a table piled high with parchment cylinders tied with white ribbons. He called the names of the graduates in turn, and each one crossed the stage to a burst of applause.

“Irma Biscay.” She was dewy-eyed and radiant.

“Dennis Farisy.” That was Dennie looking cherubic.

“Dave Hunt.” He looked sober as a judge.

“Tacy Kelly.” “Alice Morrison.” “Tib Muller.” “Betsy Ray.”

For four years they had been in high school together. Some of them had been together since kindergarten. Now they were being blown in all directions, like the silk from an opened milkweed pod.

What would happen to Winona, returning now to her seat looking chastened, to Hazel, accepting her diploma with a frank smile of pleasure and pride? The President of the school board reached the W's and Joe. Then the curtain went down. It was over.

The girls didn't walk home together. Tacy went with Mr. Kerr. Tib went with Ralph, and Betsy went with Joe. They strolled slowly through a warm night full of fireflies, smelling of the honeysuckle in bloom over Deep Valley porches.

Joe was leaving the next day for North Dakota. He was going to work again on the Wells
Courier News
.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“What shall we do? Go riding?”

“I'll tell you,” said Betsy. “I'll take you up on the Hill. Why, you haven't even seen the Secret Lane.”

“Tomorrow then,” said Joe, “I see the Secret Lane.” And he left her on the porch of the Ray house.

 

Joe Willard had lived in Deep Valley for four years, but he had never been up on the Big Hill. He didn't even know which hill the Big Hill was.

“Lots of them are big,” he said. “Agency Hill. Pigeon Hill. Why isn't one of them the Big Hill?”

“Agency Hill! Pigeon Hill!” Betsy repeated scornfully. “Better not let Tacy hear you talking like that.
This
is the Big Hill!”

They had reached the little yellow cottage where Betsy had lived until she was fourteen years old. Across the street stood Tacy's house. Beyond that on Hill Street there weren't any houses. There was a
bench where they sometimes took their supper plates. There were the hills, billowy and green, running one into another so that you couldn't quite tell where one ended and another began.

Waving at the Kellys, they climbed the steep road which rose behind Betsy's old house. Betsy showed him the thornapple tree she and Tacy used to play under. She pointed out the place where wild roses used to grow, and roses were in bloom there that moment! Flat, pink, wild roses, with yellow centers, very fragrant. Betsy picked some and put them in her hair.

At the top she showed him the Eckstrom house. There was a ravine behind it.

“We thought the sun came up out of that ravine,” she said.

“Who lives in these other houses?” asked Joe, looking around at the pretty modern cottages now perched on the brow of the hill overlooking Deep Valley.

“We don't know. We ignore those houses. They weren't here when we were little,” said Betsy, leading him on.

“This is the Secret Lane,” she said, and they went down a path bordered with beech trees, which cast such heavy shadows that the grass was sparse beneath them. No flowers grew there but the chilly waxy Ghost Flowers.

“Our club used to meet here,” Betsy told him. “It was the T.C.K.C. Club. You never could guess what that stands for.”

Joe wasn't listening too attentively. He looked harder than he listened…looked at Betsy. Now he said, “I love the way the color rushes up in your face when you talk.”

They came out on the crest of the hill overlooking Little Syria and the slough and Page Park and the river. They sat down in the grass, and Joe picked a strand and started to chew it. Betsy took off the big straw hat covered with poppies and put her arms around her knees.

They looked down the grassy slope, full of yellow bells and daisies, over the valley at the changing shadows cast by the drifting glistening clouds.

Joe began to recite a poem they had learned in junior English.