Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (15 page)

M
RS
. R
AY GAVE A SERIES
of three parties on three successive days. It was a common practice to give parties by threes, and practical as well. The same flowers could be used; the chicken salad could be made in bulk; above all the house needed to be disturbed only once. It was certainly disturbed. For three days the Rays ate in the kitchen. Anna was cross, Mr. Ray was
moody, Mrs. Ray was glowing and abstracted, and the girls bursting with excitement.

Margaret, excused from school early, ushered the guests upstairs and showed them where to lay their wraps. She wore her party dress, a soft blue silk with invisible stripes, piped in pink. Stiff pink hair ribbons stood out on either side of her small, intent face.

Betsy, Tacy and Tib hurried in after school to put on their party dresses and serve. Balancing plates full of chicken salad, hot rolls, World's Fair pickles and coffee, and second plates with ice cream and angel food cake, they nevertheless found time to smile at the mothers of their friends. Boys' mothers were particularly fascinating.

On the first day Mrs. Ray entertained the church ladies and the wives of her husband's business friends. On the second day Deep Valley's fashionable and wealthy drove to her door. For these two parties her closest friends assisted merely, “assisted throughout the rooms,” according to the
Deep Valley Sun
. Such intimates—the High Fly Whist Club crowd, the neighbors—came to the third party which was a more relaxed affair than the two preceding. It simmered down to a chosen few who 'phoned for their husbands and stayed to supper, eating up the last of the food and thoroughly discussing all three events.

They were still busy with this when Betsy went
up to do homework. Margaret had already gone to bed but she called out, “Come here, Betsy,” and Betsy went into her room.

It was a small room at the end of the hall. It didn't look like a child's room somehow, in spite of a doll bed with a doll tucked in for the night. It looked like Margaret, neat, grave, full of quiet resources.

The bureau was very precisely arranged, with the pincushion Tony had brought her from Chicago in the center. There was a low rocker where Washington loved to sleep, a low well-ordered bookcase, a sewing basket Mrs. Wheat had given her for Christmas. Framed photographs of members of her family, a Perry print of the Stuart Baby and a colored picture of a collie dog were symmetrically spaced on the walls. Everything was so fastidiously neat that Betsy was surprised to see a doll dress hanging on the bedpost.

She started to remove it but Margaret said, “No. Leave it there.”

“Does it belong here?”

“You and Julia keep something hanging on your beds,” said Margaret, referring, of course, to the combing jackets.

Betsy, sitting down beside her, took care not to smile. Margaret didn't like being smiled at.

She was sitting up in bed wearing a warm flannel night gown. Without hair ribbons, her braids betrayed their brevity but they were glossy and her face was
freshly scrubbed. As always when looking at her younger sister, Betsy admired the long dark lashes. They emphasized the beauty of her wide shining eyes.

“I've been thinking,” Margaret said, “that I'd like to give a party.”

“Why, that's fine!” Betsy replied. “Mamma is always trying to make you give a party.” Which was true. Margaret did not care much for juvenile festivities, nor for children her own age. Urged by Mrs. Ray, they came to play now and then, and Margaret treated them with scrupulous politeness, but she greatly preferred the company of a book, or Washington and Abie.

“Mamma will be delighted,” Betsy said. “Who shall we ask?”

“That's just it,” Margaret cried. “I don't want to invite a lot of children. I've been lying here thinking about it, Betsy.”

She sat up very straight and her eyes glowed.

“You see, Washington and Abie are named for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and they have their birthdays this month. So I'd like to give a party for Washington and Abie. I don't want a lot of people. I'd like to have just you and me give a party for Washington and Abie.”

Betsy was touched and complimented.

“Why, that's a fine plan! When shall we have it?”

“Lincoln's birthday or Washington's birthday?”

“Maybe it would be safer to pick a day in between. Then neither one's feelings would be hurt.”

“That's right. We'll pick a day right in the middle.”

“Say, the eighteenth. I think that's Thursday. It's just as well to have it on a Thursday. Anna won't be around to mind our messing up the kitchen.”

Betsy leaned back and began to plan. And Margaret hugged her knees in delight, for Betsy knew how to make beautiful plans. She always had and she told them as though she were telling a story.

“We'll have place cards,” she said, “like we have at the Okto Delta parties. You and I will make them. We'll draw pictures of cats and dogs or we can cut them out of magazines and paste them on cards.”

“I like to paste,” said Margaret.

“We mustn't let Abie and Washington see us making them, though.”

“Mustn't we?”

“No. We want them for a surprise. And when the day comes we'll brush Washington and Abie and tie ribbons into their collars.”

“Washington looks best in pink and Abie in blue….”

“What shall we give them to eat?”

“Something you've learned to make in your Domestic Science class.”

“Creamed salmon on toast,” said Betsy. She got up and kissed Margaret goodnight. “Go to sleep now, baby. We'll talk about it in the morning.”

Margaret snuggled down with an ecstatic sigh.

“Oh, Betsy! It's going to be such fun.”

They talked about it the next day and the next, but then came a diversion. Julia's letters about
The Mikado
had grown more and more feverishly excited, and Mr. Ray decided to send Mrs. Ray up to the Cities for the event.

“Julia would probably like her Mamma around to tie her sash and paint her face,” he said. “It's a pretty big thing for a freshman girl to have the leading part in an opera.”

Mrs. Ray thought so, too, and was very glad to go. In fact, she couldn't imagine Julia getting through it without her. Anna said she could run the house alone and the girls urged their mother to go.

“Now watch out for Margaret!” Mrs. Ray said to Betsy and went off on the four-forty-five. Her letters were even more feverish than Julia's, raving not only about
The Mikado
but also about sorority affairs.

Sororities were still not allowed to rush the freshmen much. Parties were reserved for the now impending Rush Week, which would lead up to Pledge Day and the Great Decision. There was no rule, however, against rushing mothers and the Epsilon Iotas, the Alpha Betas, the Pi Pi Gammas and the rest were certainly rushing Mrs. Ray. They were taking her to matinees, to teas, to luncheons, and Mrs. Ray knew, she wrote, why they were so nice to her. It was
because Julia, a freshman, had been chosen to sing Yum Yum. And she was the most adorable Yum Yum!

Mr. Ray chuckled when he read the letters.

“Jule thinks we have a wonderful child.”

“You think so yourself,” Betsy retorted.

“We know darn well we have three of them,” said Mr. Ray. “I'm certainly glad I made Jule go. She's having a big time.”

Betsy enjoyed being lady of the house, planning meals, tying Margaret's hair ribbons. She brought friends in every day after school and she and Margaret didn't get around to making place cards. Betsy wasn't too troubled by this. She was accustomed to making extravagant plans which she didn't carry out. Margaret mentioned the party just once, as Betsy was hurrying off to school one morning.

“Shall I tell Washington and Abie about—you know what?”

“Oh, yes. Invite them.”

“Will it be on Thursday?”

“Probably. After school.”

Thursday noon Anna said, “I'll be gone when you get home from school, lovey. I'll have everything ready for supper, though.”

“You don't need to,” said Betsy. “I'll make a Domestic Science supper.”

“Well, I hope it turns out,” said Anna who didn't think too highly of Domestic Science since a recent day
when cream puffs, tried at home, had failed lamentably to live up to their name.

“Be a good girl if you get in ahead of me,” Betsy said to Margaret. Margaret smiled; she didn't speak. The party for Washington and Abie was still a secret between them.

Betsy fully intended to come home promptly but a succession of things interfered. Tib had to stay after school for make-up work and persuaded Betsy to wait for her.

“I won't be two minutes.”

Cab and Dennie, as it happened, waited too, and when Tib came out of German class after not two minutes but ten, they proposed going to Heinz's for peach pecan sundaes.

“I have to go home,” Betsy objected.

“Fine,” said Cab. “Go home by way of Heinz's.”

“We'll hurry,” Tib promised.

And they hurried going down but coming home they loitered, acting silly, trying to walk on snow drifts which capsized under their weight. Tib and Dennie left them at the corner of Plum Street and Broad and climbing the hill with Cab Betsy realized suddenly how late it had grown. The sun was so low that the glow had gone off the snow. It went off her spirits, too.

“Oh, we can have a party for the animals anytime! It doesn't need to be this particular day,” she thought,
but she quickened her steps, and after she had parted from Cab she went still faster. Feeling guilty she sang and made a lively racket as she ran up the porch steps.

It seemed odd that no lights shone through the windows. Margaret knew how to light the gas. Going quickly into the dim hall, Betsy saw that preparations had been made for the party in the parlor. Four sofa cushions had been laid around a luncheon cloth spread on the floor. A magazine lay open with a paste pot and a pair of scissors near. Margaret must have started to make the place cards. But where were they? Where was Margaret?

Betsy went into the shadowy kitchen. She saw an empty salmon can, and the door of the oven stood open. Had Margaret been making toast to go with the salmon? Then where was it? Where was Margaret?

“She's gone over to see Mrs. Wheat,” thought Betsy. But she knew she didn't believe it. If she believed that Margaret was cozily drinking cambric tea next door, she wouldn't have this queer feeling in her stomach.

Washington didn't look up from the couch where he was sleeping, but Abie had come to meet her and now brushed against her ankles.

“Where's Margaret?” Betsy asked him.

Abie barked, a sharp bark and was silent.

Betsy went to the foot of the stairs and called, “Margaret, where are you?”

She was relieved beyond all reason when Margaret's voice answered, “Here I am. Oh, Betsy, I'm so glad you've come!”

Margaret came running down the stairs. She was wearing her party dress, the blue silk piped with pink she had worn for her mother's parties. Her pink party hair ribbons were tied into awkward bows. One had a small loop and a long end; the other had a big loop and a short end. Betsy felt a pang at her heart when she saw those bows.

“I'm so sorry,” she began. “I was slow getting home but we'll have the party tomorrow—”

Margaret interrupted.

“Betsy,” she said. “Look at my eye lashes. Aren't they curly?”

“Why, baby, your eye lashes are always curly.” But Betsy looked closely at Margaret's beautiful eyes. She drew her to a window and stared intently in the fading light. Margaret's eye lashes had been unusually long. They were short now and the ends were frizzled.

“Margaret!” cried Betsy. “What have you done?”

“I was trying to have the party,” Margaret said. “You see, Betsy, Washington and Abie had been invited. I couldn't not have a party after they were invited. I started to make the place cards, but they kept looking and you'd said they weren't supposed to see and I was lonesome if I kept them shut up in
my room. So I thought I'd let the place cards go and start the lunch.

“I thought I didn't really need to cream the salmon. They like it just as well the way it comes out of the can. But I wanted to put it on toast to make it a party. So I lighted the oven and it exploded.”

“Exploded!” Betsy cried. “What do you mean?”

“It just exploded. There was a big bang. And it made my eye lashes curly.”

“What did you do?”

“I turned it off,” said Margaret. “Oh, Betsy, I was scared, though! I was awfully scared!” and throwing her arms around her sister Margaret began to cry. She cried in big wrenching sobs which tore at Betsy's heart. Margaret didn't cry often. She was the reserved one, the Persian Princess, she was very different from most girls' little sisters and brothers who were always crying.

Betsy felt a wave of awfulness. She hugged Margaret tight.

“Margaret,” she said, forcing her voice to be steady. “Do your eyes hurt? Do they feel funny?”

It seemed to her that a century passed before Margaret answered.

“My eyes are all right. It's just that the lashes are curly. I'd like them that way if I hadn't been so scared…” and Margaret began to cry again.

Betsy knew that Margaret wasn't crying only because of her fright. It was her disappointment about
the party, the long hours of watching for Betsy who didn't come. Betsy started to cry, too, from relief that Margaret's eyes were safe and because she was sorry and ashamed. But she cried for only a minute. It came to her suddenly that she was sixteen years old, too old to cry in a situation like this where there was something else to do.

She pushed the loose hair back from Margaret's wet cheeks and kissed her.

“We must light the gas and get busy,” she said briskly. “Papa will be coming in and I've promised him a Dom. Sci. supper. It was horrid of me to forget the party, but I'm going to try to make it up to Washington and Abie. I'm going to let them sit at the table tonight, right beside us, on chairs. We'll have creamed salmon, of course. And Margaret, I'll tell you what we'll do.”