Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (8 page)

O
N A GOLDEN HILLTOP
overlooking Deep Valley, Betsy, Tacy and Tib founded their sorority. They sat in a grove of small maples, all the same color and ridiculously bright. Below them autumn flowed like spilled wine. Not only the trees, but the bushes, the vines, even the grasses were ruddy. Descending rows of rooftops glittered in the sun.

The girls had escaped from the Crowd by a series of manoeuvres. They left school by a side door, walked to the street below High Street, walked along that for two blocks, and entered the Ray house at the back. Anna was up in her room, and they foraged for food with muffled laughter which brought Margaret into the kitchen.

“We're going for a ride,” Betsy explained. “A very mysterious, important ride.”

A sympathetic smile quivered across Margaret's little face.

“Can I go, too? I'm all alone. Mamma's gone out.”

“I'm sorry,” Betsy said, “but this is something secret, Margaret.” She felt a little wrench of guilt as Margaret's smile died away. “Will you help us, dear? We don't want anyone to know where we are, so if the doorbell rings don't answer until we're gone.”

“All right,” Margaret agreed. She went slowly back to the parlor, with her erect, dignified tread.

The girls found grapes and crackers. The front doorbell started to ring and they slipped out the back door. They dashed across lots to the barn, hitched up Old Mag and climbed into the surrey.

“Let's go up Agency Hill,” Tacy suggested. “There's such a beautiful view.”

This steep road had led to an Indian Agency back in pioneer days. Tom's Grandmother Slade told stories
about it. Old Mag dragged the surrey patiently to the summit, where the girls turned off on a shoulder of the hill. At the maple grove they loosened Old Mag's checkrein and left her under a pink-gold tree.

“Now, what's it all about?” asked Tib, throwing off her hat. Tacy tossed off her hat, too. The yellow head and the auburn one looked like bright leaves drifting down as the girls sank to the ground.

Betsy added her hat to the pile. But she didn't sit down. Hazel eyes glowing, she swayed on her toes.

“Let's us—the three of us—start a sorority.”

Tacy and Tib were stunned for a moment by the magnificence of the concept.

“Do you mean a real one?” Tacy asked.

“Just like they have at the U. Greek letters and all.”

“What would they stand for, the letters?”

“Gosh, I don't know! We'd have to make something up.” Betsy sat down in front of them, looking earnestly into their faces. “We're good ones to start a sorority. You know what the word means—sisterhood—and we've been friends so long. A thing like this would hold us together always.”

“We'd hold together anyway, I imagine,” said Tib. “We held together all the time I was in Milwaukee.”

“But Tib! If we made vows of friendship….”

“We don't really need any.”

“Well, it certainly couldn't hurt to make them,” replied Tacy. “I can't think of anyone I'd feel safer
about promising to like.” This struck her so funny that she burst out laughing. “Wilt thou, Betsy Ray, take me, Tacy Kelly, in holy bonds of friendship?”

“I wilt,” chanted Betsy.

“Me, too!” shouted Tib, and began to fling leaves with such vigor that presently Tacy was gasping in the grass and Betsy's hair had fallen down.

She twisted it up determinedly.

“Stop acting like five-year-olds! Seriously, isn't it a grand idea?”

“It's a marvelous idea.”

“It's a swell idea. Especially,” added Tib, reaching for a grape, “if we give lots of parties.”

“Oh, yes, we'll give parties and invite the fraternity men.”

“What fraternity men?”

“Why, the boys.” Betsy opened the box of crackers and they all began to munch. “We three will write the constitution and the ritual. And then we'll send invitations to the girls and ask them to join, and we'll have a meeting and initiate them.”

“Who shall we ask?”

“Just the Crowd. Sororities are terribly exclusive. Let's see, there are three of us. Carney, Alice, Winona and Irma make seven. It would be nice to have eight, to make two tables of cards.”

“Katie is pretty lonesome now that Julia's gone away. If you don't think she's too old…” Tacy hesitated.

“I'd love to have Katie. She's such a good sport.”

“And we wouldn't always have to have a chaperone if she was along,” Tib pointed out.

“That's right. Now we have to think of a name.”

Betsy stretched out on her back. Tib sat with her face in her hands. Tacy dropped her head into crossed arms. There was silence in the grove, except for the rustling made by an exploring squirrel.

“These aren't oak trees, if you're looking for nuts,” Betsy murmured. “Go away and let us concentrate.”

She sat up suddenly.

“Do you think the name ought to be serious? We three feel serious about it, of course. But you know Winona. We'll have to make it sort of devilish to appeal to her.”

“How about Eight Devils?” Tib inquired.

Betsy and Tacy stared in admiring unbelief.

“Eight Devils!” “Why, that's perfect!” “Tib Muller, I didn't think you had it in you!”

Surprised but elated at this triumph, Tib preened herself. “I think it's pretty good, too.”

“Eight Devils!” Betsy repeated. “Now we have to put it into Greek. Who do we know who speaks Greek?”

“Probably Miss Erickson does, but I wouldn't ask her, the old pill!”

“Miss Bangeter knows everything, but she might not…she might not…” Betsy didn't finish the
sentence. The others understood.

“Miss Sparrow would know.” Miss Sparrow was Deep Valley's popular librarian.

“Of course. We'll ask Miss Sparrow. It's only the word eight we need to bother about. Devil begins with D and I know the Greek letter. It's shaped like a triangle. It's Delta.”

“We're the Eight Deltas,” shouted Tib. She jumped to her feet and started shwushing through the leaves. “I'll make the invitations, Betsy. I'll draw horns in all the corners and maybe a devil's pitchfork.”

“Swell. We'll make them tomorrow after school.”

“When will we write the constitution and stuff?”

“The day after that.” Betsy rocked with joy. “Let's have the initiation Saturday night. We can have it at my house.”

“Let's have a mock initiation before the real one. Put ice down their backs—that sort of thing.”

“Oh, let's!”

“I feel as though we were kids again, making up a club,” said Tib.

Betsy turned on her indignantly. “This isn't any kiddish club, Tib Muller! It's a sorority. You're going to take a vow never to get mad at us.”

“I never get mad at you anyway.”

“She's hopeless,” Betsy said to Tacy. “Let's go ask Miss Sparrow.”

They went back to Old Mag, who whinnied a
welcome. Betsy fixed the checkrein, and they climbed into the surrey. They drove down Agency Hill to the library, talking all the way about pins, grips, passwords, whistles and salutes. With windblown hair and pink cheeks they burst in on Miss Sparrow.

“Miss Sparrow, what's the Greek word for eight?”

“Eight? Let me see! Why, it's o k t
,” she replied.

“How do you spell it?”

“O-K-T-O.”

“That's all!”

“Thank you!”

They rushed back outside. “We're the Okto Deltas!” “The Okto Deltas!”

“It sounds wonderful!” Betsy exclaimed, blissfully uncritical of the fact that it was a hybrid name, that Okto was a Greek word while Delta was only the Greek initial of an English word. It sounded just as good as Epsilon Iota.

Next day, all three were wool-gathering in classes. They deluged one another with notes and dodged their mystified friends. After school they went downtown and purchased cardboard, orange and black crayons, orange and black crepe paper. Orange and black, they had decided, were to be the Okto Delta colors.

They went to Tib's house, and locked in her room, they made the invitations. Tib cut the cardboard into diamond shaped pieces, which she folded into double
triangles. The outer flap was colored orange and outlined in black to make a Delta. Superimposed was the black letter O with a devil curled inside. On the inner flap, the recipient was invited to come to Betsy's house on Saturday night to join the mystic order of Okto Delta.

Tib mailed the invitations next morning on her way to school, and when the three girls gathered that afternoon at Tacy's house, Katie's invitation, postmarked and looking very official, lay on the hall table.

They locked themselves in Tacy's room and began the constitution, Tib writing, Betsy dictating, Tacy adding witty bits. Before they had finished, the telephone began to ring. The other girls had come from school and found their invitations.

Excitement seethed over the wire and through the Crowd next day. When the boys found every girl engaged for Saturday night, they were curious and annoyed.

On Saturday it started to rain, a steady downpour.

“It's perfect, just perfect for an initiation,” Betsy rejoiced.

Tacy and Tib came for supper, and after supper, in spite of the rain, Mr. and Mrs. Ray obligingly went to the Majestic, taking Margaret with them.

The first thing the girls did was lock all the doors and pull the shades. They tacked blankets over the parlor windows. There were orange and black candles
in readiness but they didn't light them. Instead, when they had finished their work, they extinguished all lights everywhere.

The initiates found a dead black house veiled with sheets of rain. Early arrivals were forced to stand on the porch until all five had come. When the door was opened, Irma entered first.

“Shake the hand of friendship,” said a deep sepulchral voice. Irma clasped a shadowy hand. Then her terrified scream rang out. Carney followed and she screamed. So did Alice. Winona and Katie were made of sterner stuff. Katie grasped the hand without a word, and Winona cried scornfully, “Calm yourselves, children! It's just a glove filled with cracked ice.”

In the jet black parlor they were told to kneel in a circle. Again each girl screamed in turn as a small piece of ice slithered down her back. They were told by the sepulchral voice, sounding now more like Tacy's, and shaky with laughter, that they must eat worms.

“Sure. I like worms,” said Winona. “Can I have a second helping? It's spaghetti, kids.”

“It isn't! It's worms! It's horrible!”

The pandemonium became so great that it seemed best to light the candles. The founders were revealed dressed in sheets trimmed with black and orange crepe paper.

“Now sit down in a row. Make quick!” commanded Tib.

Betsy unfolded a sheet of foolscap paper and began to read.

“Respectfully submitted, the Constitution of the Okto Delta sorority….” A sorority, she paused to explain, was a sisterhood. They were banding themselves together into a sisterhood.

“Hi, Sister Biscay,” Winona hailed Irma.

“Howdy, Sister Root,” cried Katie.

Tib rushed to silence them and Betsy continued:

“‘Okto,' be it understood, is a Greek word meaning eight. ‘Delta' is the Greek equivalent of the English letter D, which in this case stands for Devils, leaving the translated name of the sorority—”

“Eight Devils!” Winona interrupted. “Whoopee!”

Betsy frowned severely.

“The purpose of the sorority,” she went on, “is to have a good time. The only theory it has to expound is, ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you.' Requirements are being jolly, sticking by the bunch, and treating everybody square.”

She proceeded to the rules and by-laws.

The officers, elected by ballot once a year, would be president, secretary-treasurer and sergeant-at-arms. The initiation fee would be two cents, the monthly dues ten cents. Money thus accumulated was to be used at the discretion of a social committee.
This committee, composed of two girls, would make arrangements for at least one festivity every two weeks.

“For example,” Betsy interjected, “dances, picnics, cross-country tramps, mock weddings and stag parties.”

Each member was to entertain the sorority every eighth Saturday evening in alphabetical order. Refreshments would be served.

“And they'd better be good!” someone shouted.

“We must now take the sacred vow of friendship,” Betsy said, and Tib went around with an ink pot and a pen and everyone was asked to sign.

Winona took the pen doubtfully. “Do you mean that I have to stay friends with all of you forever?”

“That's right,” Betsy replied.

“What if Irma takes Squirrelly away from me?”

“She can't. She's your sister in Okto Delta. She has to leave all our beaux alone.”

“Heck!” said Winona, signing. “That alone is worth the dues.”