Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (19 page)

B
ETSY DID SOME THINKING
about sororities during spring vacation. They weren't at all what she had thought them to be. Julia's experience made them seem shallow, and the ease with which Julia had abandoned the idea of joining one had been an eye-opener, too.

Sisterhoods! That, thought Betsy, was the bunk. You couldn't make sisterhoods with rules and elections. If they meant anything, they had to grow naturally. She thought how she and Tacy had started to be friends when they were five years old. They had added Tib, Alice and Winona; then Carney and Irma. That had been almost a real sisterhood and it could have gone on forever without hurting anybody's feelings. They might have added Hazel Smith this year.

Or perhaps, Betsy thought, she and Hazel might have had a friendship independent of the Crowd. After all, you couldn't go through life rolling your friendships into one gigantic snowball. You wanted different kinds of friendships, with different kinds of people. She might like someone awfully well whom Tacy wouldn't care for at all. You ought not to go through life, even a small section of life like high school or college, with your friendships fenced in by snobbish artificial barriers.

“It would be like living in a pasture when you could have the whole world to roam in,” Betsy thought. “I don't believe sororities would appeal very long to anyone with much sense of adventure.”

She wondered whether Julia still had her lofty ideas about sororities and tried to question her. But it was hard to bring Julia back to the subject. She had only a short vacation, yet she had plunged into the study of
German. A singer had to know German, of course, especially if she was going to Berlin.

“Why the dickens didn't I take it up long ago? Here we are living in a town that's half German and we study only Latin. We don't see what a wonderful chance we have to learn a living language. One of your best friends is German, Bettina. If you were studying it, you could practise on her and her parents.” And that was all Betsy could get out of Julia, who was on her way to take a lesson in German from the Lutheran minister's wife.

School began again and walking back and forth along High Street, where brownish green buds were swelling on the maples and the bushes around the houses were wearing pale green veils, Betsy continued to try to straighten out the matter of sororities. She had prided herself this year on being a “popular” girl. But she had never been less popular. Unpopularity had lost her a junior-senior banquet chairmanship; it had lost her the Essay Contest. If this went on she wouldn't even have a class or Zetamathian office next year. Yet the school and the school societies, she realized now, were more important to her than Okto Delta.

Of course, the “popularity” with boys had been nice but she wouldn't need to lose that if they gave up Okto Delta. In fact, the boy situation might even
be improved by the collapse of the two fraternal organizations.

“Do you know,” Winona said, one evening in late April when the Okto Deltas were gathered to celebrate Betsy's seventeenth birthday, “when we talked the boys into getting up that fraternity we should have made them put into their vows that they wouldn't take out any girls but us.”

Everyone laughed and someone asked why.

“Because they're straying, that's why. They've almost all got crushes on freshmen girls. Do you feel perfectly sure of Dave?” she asked, looking fixedly at Betsy.

“I haven't seen him for a week,” said Betsy.

“Do you know what Squirrelly said to me the other day? ‘You Okto Deltas wouldn't mind, would you, if we boys brought some other girls to the parties?'”

“He didn't!”

“The nerve of him!”

“I got so mad I gave him his Omega Delta pin back, and it wouldn't surprise me to see some little freshman wearing it.”

“Well, if they can take out other girls, we can go with other boys,” said Irma in her soft voice.

“Hm…m…m! Easier said than done! Girls have to wait to be asked.”

“Besides, we've cut ourselves off from several of
the best boys in the class. Look at Stan Moore and Joe Willard! They're certainly the leading juniors and not even in our Crowd. And we've lost Tony.”

There was a sharp, rather significant silence.

“Tony is suspended again,” Alice said.

“What happened?”

“I hate to say it, but I believe he came to school when he'd been drinking. He goes into the saloons sometimes with that fast gang he runs with.”

“He's going around with a perfectly awful girl.”

Betsy felt as though a hand had closed over her heart. She was silent through a regretful chorus of remarks that it was a shame, that Tony was an old peach and that something ought to be done about him. When the party ended she walked down the hill with the girls who were singing in parts

Walking back alone through the April night, which held the sweetness of spring in spite of the cold, she seemed to hear Tony singing as he had sung so often beside the Ray piano. She remembered his indulgent, teasing fondness with the Crowd.

Tony had needed the Crowd. He had grown up too soon; he had been exposed to too many things too young, and it had made him a little bitter. On the other hand it had given him the experience, the sense
of proportion which had enabled him to see the truth about fraternities. The others would have done well to have followed his lead in rejecting them.

But boys and girls who are old for their age need to be with people who are younger and sillier than they are. The Crowd, the normal happy high school Crowd, had been good for Tony. He had needed them, and they had let him down.

“I let him down,” Betsy thought. “It was me especially, because Tony likes me. You might almost say he loves me, in a sort of way. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to get Tony back. I'll have to manage to break up the fraternity and sorority first, though.”

As it happened Betsy didn't need to take the initiative in that direction. In the Social Room next day Carney drew her aside.

“Miss Bangeter,” she said, “has asked me to come to her office after school. I can't imagine what it's about. But I know it isn't anything pleasant.”

“I'll go with you,” Betsy offered, “wait outside the door and carry away your remains.”

She waited, and Carney came out of Miss Bangeter's room looking flushed and embarrassed.

“It was about Okto Delta,” she said. “She wishes we would break it up. She thinks Greek letter organizations are bad enough in college but in high
school they're out of the question.”

“What about the boys?” Betsy asked.

“They formed Omega Delta just to keep up with us. And she thinks it won't last long. It's the Okto Deltas she's worried about. I hope you won't mind, Betsy, but I promised her I'd urge you girls to end it.”

“Heck!” said Betsy. “I'm willing. And I think everyone else is. It's been so much fun that I'd like to see it go before it's spoiled.”

“So would I,” said Carney.

“We'll just get together and agree to break it up.”

“
Sic transit Gloria
,” said Carney, which Betsy thought was most impressive. Carney went on earnestly, “I'd kind of like to square things with the school before I graduate. I think I'll give a party and invite the kids in our Crowd along with a lot of others—Stan, Hazel, Joe, and Phyllis Brandish. What do you say?”

“I think it's a good idea,” said Betsy.

So Okto Delta, which had been born on a golden autumn hillside, disappeared with the last of the winter's frost. It melted away and was no more, and the pins were lost, or dropped into jewel cases and forgotten, or given away to boys who forgot to return them. Okto Delta went out with the school year.

The school year speeded up, as it always did in May. The members of the Domestic Science class
entertained their mothers at a luncheon: cream of corn soup, croutons, croquettes, baked potato on the half shell, biscuits, salad, ice cream with toasted marshmallows, cakes and coffee.

The juniors were working furiously getting ready for the banquet. Betsy had told Hazel her idea about turning the school into a park.

“Why, that would be wonderful!” Hazel cried.

“Maybe you can think of something better,” Betsy said, trying to be modest.

“No, I can't, nor of anything half so good.”

Betsy's idea of a park was being carried out under Hazel's efficient direction.

The Inter-Society track meet was held and the cup went to the Philos. Since they had already secured the debating cup, much hung on the Essay Contest. Joe and Stan wrote their essays in mid-May. Betsy, herself, had no doubt as to the outcome. The Philomathians would win all three cups and it was her fault.

“I could have won the Essay Contest this year. Well, I'll win it next year or I'll know the reason why. There won't be any Okto Delta to keep me from getting the chance.”

Folly was pretty well erased from their lives, but the consequences of folly were still with them.

“
I DON'T KNOW WHY
,” said Betsy, “but I just didn't take all Gaston's talk about herbariums very seriously.”

“Neither did I,” said Tacy.

“Neither did I,” said Tib. “But I don't see why we didn't. The very first day of school he gave us instructions about them, and he's mentioned them regularly ever since.”

“We bought the paper covers and the glue and things ages ago.”

“But then we forgot all about them.”

“And now he wants them turned in tomorrow and he says they will count for one fourth of our year's marks! It's awful!” said Betsy, summarizing. “It's a perfectly awful situation!”

They were walking home from school in a mood of acute depression. A spell of warm rain had been followed by heat. The girls had changed that noon into thin, elbow-sleeved dresses. It was suddenly almost summer.

The rest of the Crowd had gone riding in Carney's auto, but Betsy, Tacy and Tib had not been able to go. They had come face to face at last with the matter of herbariums.

“‘A herbarium,'” said Betsy, “‘is a collection of dried and pressed specimens of plants, usually mounted or otherwise prepared for permanent preservation and systematically arranged in paper covers placed in boxes or cases.'”

“You know the definition all right,” said Tib. “But you can't turn in a definition tomorrow.”

“How many flowers did he say we had to have?”

“Fifty.”

“We might as well tell him we haven't made them and all flunk the course,” said practical Tib. “At least
we'll be together when we repeat it next year.”

“But I can't bear to flunk such an easy course. It's a disgrace!” groaned Tacy.

“Besides that,” said Betsy. “I have to get some physics in sometime if I'm going to college.”

Their footsteps echoed in a gloomy silence.

Then Betsy stopped. “See here!” she cried. “We're not going to give in. It's just four o'clock now and we have until nine tomorrow to make those herbariums. That's seventeen hours.”

“Only nine,” said Tib. “We're supposed to spend eight of them sleeping.”

“
Supposed
to spend!
Supposed
to spend!” Betsy was scornful. “There's no law about going to bed the night you have to make a herbarium for botany. You both know as well as I do that the Big Hill is simply covered with flowers. We could find fifty different kinds between now and nine o'clock tomorrow.”

“But, Betsy,” said Tib. “We don't have to just pick them. We have to dry them and press them and paste them up and label them.”

“All the harder,” said Betsy triumphantly.

“All the harder! It's so hard it's impossible.”

“No, it isn't. We'll have to stay at your house all night. We'll go up on the hill right now and pick until it gets dark, and then we'll go to your house and press the things we've found and paste them up.
We can label all night long.”

Tacy's eyes began to shine. “Let's try. It would be fun.”

“All right,” said Tib. “I'm willing if you are. You can come, I think, but we can't let Papa and Mamma know we're awake all night.”

They stopped in at the Ray house to telephone. Mrs. Muller didn't object to guests.

“Don't save supper for us,” Tib said. “We want to get some flowers for our herbariums so we'll be out on the hill quite late. We'll fix ourselves something to eat when we come in. Don't worry if it's after dark.”

Mrs. Ray said that Betsy might stay with Tib to “finish” her herbarium. They walked to Hill Street for Mrs. Kelly's permission, which they also secured. Filling their pockets with cookies and cheese—cheese, Betsy informed them, was very appropriate for such an expedition, being highly nourishing—they went up to the Big Hill.

It was the most enchanting moment of the spring. The heat had brought out little light green leaves on all the trees. Wild plum trees were in bloom, white and fragrant. They were full of bees and the grasses were full of flowers.

The girls picked industriously. They had all provided themselves with boxes and at first these seemed to fill with remarkable speed. They found clover and
dandelions, and strawberry blossoms and buttercups, and wild geranium and lupine, and columbine and false Solomon's-seal.

“It's not going to be hard to find fifty different kinds at this rate,” said Betsy. “Let's sit down and eat some of that nourishing cheese.”

Tacy agreed but Tib warned, “We mustn't rest but a moment. It's getting late.” The sun was, indeed, sinking toward the roof of Tacy's house.

They jumped up again presently. Like bird dogs on a scent they scurried in zigzag lines up the hill, picking as they went. Now they didn't seem to find many flowers they had not already found. There were purple violets.

“What about the dog-tooth kind?”

“There are plenty on top of the hill,” Tacy said. They reached the top and started searching underneath the trees. They found the dog-tooth violets and spring beauties and wake-robins.

“Are the bloodroots all gone?”

“We might find just three. Here are some Dutchman's-breeches. One for each of us.”

They found some ancient hepaticas, too.

Crossing the top of the hill, they dipped into the shadowy ravine. They found jacks-in-the-pulpit. They scrambled down to the stream where iris ought to be in bloom. It was. But twilight had caught up with
them now. It was very dark in the ravine.

“How many have you got?” asked Tib.

“I've lost count,” said Betsy.

“I have twenty-four, I think,” said Tacy.

“I have thirty-two,” said Tib. “And it's too dark to hunt any longer. We couldn't see anything now but a sunflower or something so big it would come up and hit us in the face.”

“We'd better go home,” said Betsy. “We'll get these pressed and pasted up and labeled. Then we'll set an alarm and be up and out with the sunrise. That's the best we can do.”

“Maybe,” suggested Tacy, “we could sneak in a few garden flowers? There are pansies around our house, and some bleeding hearts, and peonies. Lilacs, too.”

“We'll certainly use them. If Gaston doesn't like it, it's just too bad,” said Betsy.

Walking down the hill they finished the cookies and cheese. It was growing cool. Birds were calling to each other from tree to tree, and the west was full of gold-edged clouds.

They stopped at the Kellys' for Tacy's “dream robe,” though she knew she'd have no need for it tonight. They proceeded to the Mullers', and to Tib's relief her father and mother were going out.

“Get yourselves plenty to eat now,” Mrs. Muller
cautioned them. “Matilda left something for you.”

“How does it happen you have to work so late. Eh?” Mr. Muller asked. “Couldn't you have collected these flowers earlier?”

“Not the spring flowers,” said Tib. She tried to be vague about the whole thing. “We have to turn these herbariums in tomorrow, so we'll be pretty busy this evening.”

“Well, get to bed by ten,” said Mrs. Muller departing.

By ten! By ten their work was barely started. Flowers didn't dry, they discovered, simply by lying inside the dictionary for half an hour.

“We'll have to dry them in the oven,” Tib decided They went down to the kitchen and lit the oven and put their flowers in.

Tib's brothers, Frederick and Hobbie, took a friendly interest. Fred lighted a lantern and went out to the vacant lot behind the house. He brought back quite a handful of weeds. Encouraged by their praise, he took the lantern and went out again—with Hobbie this time—and brought back another handful.

“This work has to be systematized,” said Betsy. “We can't all sit here waiting for the flowers to bake. I'll take charge of that, and Tib can start pasting up the ones that are dried, and Tacy can start looking them up in the botany books.”

“
Liebchen
,” said Tib. “We can't trust you to sit by
the fire while the flowers bake. You'd get to thinking about something else and let them all burn.”

“I'll watch them,” Freddie offered.

“That would be good,” said Tib. “Freddie is very reliable.”

So Fred and Hobbie sat by the oven watching the flowers bake and bringing them upstairs when they reached the proper state of dryness. Tacy and Tib, more deft with their fingers than Betsy, pasted rapidly while Betsy tried to identify the various specimens by consulting the botany books.

Everything was going beautifully when the Mullers' returning carriage was heard outside. The oven was hastily extinguished along with the kitchen light, and the flowers were hustled upstairs. Fred and Hobbie dashed to their room and into bed with their clothes on. The girls turned out their light, too, and when Mr. and Mrs. Muller came upstairs Tib called, “Good night. You don't need to bother to wake us. I've taken the alarm clock.”

“It seems to me you could have done some of this work earlier in the season,” Mr. Muller grumbled, but the girls pretended not to hear him. When the house was dark and quiet, they cautiously lighted the gas.

Finding the flowers had been hard and drying them even harder, but labeling them proved to be hardest of all. It was easy enough to track down violets and
Dutchman's-breeches, columbine and wild geranium. But some of the weeds Fred and Hobbie had brought in from the vacant lot defied classification. Midnight passed, and one o'clock and two o'clock. They were still working.

“I'm going to get some sleep,” said Tib, “and I advise you to do the same. I've set the alarm for five.”

So they all lay down on Tib's bed, pulling a comforter over their tired bodies.

It seemed to Betsy that she had hardly closed her eyes before the alarm clock was shrilling. Tib shut it off quickly and they tiptoed into the bathroom to splash their faces before combing their hair. There was no time for puffs today.

“I'd like a cup of coffee,” Betsy said, but there wasn't time even for that. They paused in the kitchen to light the oven; they would have to dry whatever flowers they found before Matilda came down to get breakfast. Putting on their jackets, they stole out of doors.

Color was streaking the sky and birds were competing in mad chorus, but the girls were too sleepy to observe the beauty of the dawn. They reached the vacant lot and Tib stooped to begin picking, but then she uttered a disgusted exclamation.

“
Drei Dummkopfen
! That's what we are.”

“What's the matter?”

“Flowers don't open until the sun comes up!”

Betsy and Tacy dropped to their knees and they saw that the humble herbage was indeed a soggy indistinguishable mass, There might or might not be blossoms later on these wet and tightly coiled grasses.

“Fine botany students we are!” cried Tacy and went off into laughter which made the robins, thrashers, meadow larks and warblers redouble their efforts at vocal supremacy.

“We might as well have had our coffee,” burbled Betsy. “We have to sit here until the sun comes up.”

“No,” said Tib. “We'll grab handfuls just like Fred and Hobbie did last night. We can see later whether any flowers appear.”

“It will add to the suspense,” said Tacy, wiping laughter from her eyes, and they all began to pick. They picked until Tib said, “We simply must have fifty kinds now.”

They tiptoed into the kitchen and put their scurvy specimens into the oven. Tib made coffee while they baked. Taking weeds and coffee up to Tib's room, they started pasting and labeling again.

“We can't possibly identify all these,” said Tib.

“Some of them,” said Tacy, “will have to remain forever anonymous.”

“I know,” said Betsy. “We'll make a point of the fact that we can't identify them. ‘Mr. Gaston,' we will say, ‘What are these rare and interesting specimens?
We can't find them in any of our learned tomes.'”

They were all feeling silly but as the sun climbed higher and the need to complete their work grew urgent they fell silent and even grim.

Mrs. Muller knocked at the door. “Are you awake?”

“Oh, yes. We've been down and had our breakfast. Tell Matilda not to be surprised if the oven is hot.”

At eight o'clock they stumbled out of the house, rumpled, pale, with lines beneath their eyes and herbariums under their arms.

“I think,” said Tib, as they walked down Hill Street, “that this was an idiotic thing to do.”

Betsy and Tacy grunted.

“Why, I realized last night that I would have enjoyed making a herbarium. I like to do that sort of thing. I could have made a good one.”

“So could I,” admitted Tacy.

“Well, I couldn't,” said Betsy. “But I should have been interested, at least. I'm crazy enough about flowers.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Tib, “we've had a pretty foolish year. You and I especially, Betsy. It's been fun, and I guess it's been worth it but I wouldn't want another year this foolish.”

“Neither would I,” said Tacy.

“Me either,” said Betsy.

“We're getting a little old for this sort of thing,” said Tib, looking severe.