Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Read Betsy-Tacy and Tib Online
Authors: Maud Hart Lovelace
Betsy-Tacy
and
Tib
Maud Hart Lovelace
Illustrated by
Lois Lenski
For
M
IDGE
and J
OAN
I was ten when I discovered the books about Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. This was years and years ago, in 1965, and even then the stories seemed old-fashioned—in a tantalizing way that sent me hurrying to our school library to see just how many books by Maud Hart Lovelace I might find there.
After reading the first few pages of
Betsy-Tacy,
I remember flipping to the front of the book to check the copyright date. It had been published in 1940, and the other books about Betsy and her friends followed soon after. I made some calculations in my head. In the early 1940s my mother had been young, a high-school student. But surely the adventures of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib were supposed to have taken place long before then. I was right. A talk with my mother revealed that the stories were about girls who were growing up at the time my grandmothers were little. In fact, Granny, my grandmother Adele, was nearly the same age as Maud Hart Lovelace, who wrote the stories about her own childhood. Ms. Lovelace was born in 1892; Granny was born in 1893. And I am fairly certain that my independent, high-spirited grandmother must have had a childhood similar to Betsy Ray’s. Never mind that Betsy and her friends lived in Minnesota and my grandmother grew up in Arkansas. As I read about the School Entertainment and ice-cream socials, about ladies leaving calling cards and the milkman with his horse-drawn wagon, I felt that I was having an unexpected and welcome peek into Granny’s childhood—a gift to me from Maud Hart Lovelace.
As I continued to read about Betsy and Tacy and Tib, I discovered something equally as wonderful as the fact that the books could have been about my beloved granny. Even though they took place at the turn of the twentieth century, the things that happened in the books were very like some of the things that happened to my parents when they were growing up later, in the 1920s and 1930s. The trouble at the School Entertainment in
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
prompted a story from my father about the time he broke his arm during a school play. I told my mother about Betsy and Tacy and the ornery hen in
Betsy-Tacy,
and she told me about getting in trouble in first grade for letting some visiting chickens out of their cage. These were small stories, things that could happen to anyone, but when Maud Hart Lovelace told small stories she made them seem big.
And, I eventually realized, the small stories were stories that could happen at any time. The more I thought about it, the more I discovered that I liked Betsy and Tacy and Tib because although they were growing up a good seventy years before I was, their lives weren’t really so different from mine. My friends and my sister and I were active, independent girls. We staged parades and carnivals and plays. We built things, we planned things, we concocted things. We had big ideas and we carried them out. I could be Betsy, I thought, as I read about choosing a Queen of Summer, or making a house in a piano box, or walking along the Secret Lane, or being granted permission to go to the library all alone.
When I grew up and decided that I wanted to be a writer, I remembered how Maud Hart Lovelace had made small stories big. And I remembered that she had written about her childhood. Many of the incidents I have written about are small events from my own childhood—setting up a stand in our front yard to sell strawberries, wildflowers, and lemonade; putting on a carnival to raise money for the Red Cross; going on school field trips. The trick is making those small stories big enough—interesting or funny enough—to merit their places in books. I also found myself creating mostly girl characters—independent girls who operate not quite outside the world of adults, but not quite within it either. They hover somewhere between, with their own plans and big ideas, and friends to help carry them out.
Very much like Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.
—Ann M. Martin
Three can make the planets sing
—M
ARY
C
AROLYN
D
AVIES
Begging at Mrs. Ekstrom’s
B
ETSY AND Tacy and Tib were three little girls who were friends. They never quarreled.
Betsy and Tacy were friends first. They were good friends, and they never quarreled. When Tib moved into that neighborhood, and the three of them started playing together, grown-up people said: “It’s too bad! Betsy Ray and Tacy Kelly always played so nicely. Two little girls often do play nicely,
but just let a third one come around….” And they stopped, and their silence sounded as though they were saying: “then the trouble begins!”
But although so many people expected it, no trouble began with Betsy, Tacy and Tib. The three of them didn’t quarrel, any more than the two of them had. They sometimes quarreled with Julia and Katie, though. Julia and Katie were Betsy’s and Tacy’s big sisters; they were bossy; and Betsy and Tacy and Tib didn’t like to be bossed.
Betsy and Tacy lived on Hill Street, which ran straight up into a green hill and stopped. The small yellow cottage where the Ray family lived was the last house on that side of the street, and the rambling white house opposite where the Kelly family lived was the last house on that side. These two houses ended the street, and after that came the hill.
Tib didn’t live on Hill Street. She lived on Pleasant Street. To get to Tib’s house from the place where Betsy and Tacy lived you went one block down and one block over. (The second block was through a vacant lot.) Tib lived in a chocolate-colored house which was the most beautiful house Betsy and Tacy had ever been in. It had front stairs and back stairs and a tower and panes of colored glass in the front door.
Tib was the same age as Betsy and Tacy. They
were all eight years old. They were six when Tib came to live in Deep Valley, and now they were eight. Tacy was the tallest. She had long red ringlets and freckles and thin legs. Until she got acquainted with people Tacy was bashful. Tib was the smallest. She was little and dainty with round blue eyes and a fluff of yellow hair. She looked like a picture-book fairy, except, of course, that she didn’t have wings. Betsy was the middle-sized one. She had plump legs and short brown braids which stuck out behind her ears. Her smile showed teeth which were parted in the middle, and Betsy was almost always smiling.
When Betsy ran out of doors in the morning, she came with a beam on her face. That was because it was fun to plan what she and Tacy and Tib were going to do. Betsy loved to think up things to do and Tacy and Tib loved to do them.
One morning Betsy ran out of her house and met Tacy who had just run out of hers. They met in the middle of the road and ran up to the bench which stood at the end of Hill Street. From that bench they could look ’way down the street. They often waited there for Tib.
Betsy and Tacy had to wait for Tib because they got ready to play sooner than she did. Betsy’s mother was slim and quick; she didn’t need much help around the house. And Tacy’s mother had ten
children besides Tacy, so of course there wasn’t much for Tacy to do. Tib’s mother had a hired girl to help her, but just the same Tib had to work. Tib’s mother believed in children knowing how to work. Tib dusted the legs of the chairs and polished the silver. She was learning to cook and to sew.
Betsy and Tacy didn’t mind waiting today. It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.
“What shall we do today?” asked Tacy.
“Let’s go up on the Big Hill,” Betsy answered.
The Big Hill wasn’t the hill which ended Hill Street. That was the Hill Street Hill. The Big Hill rose up behind Betsy’s house. And a white house stood at the top.
“Shall we take a picnic?” asked Tacy.
“I wish we could,” said Betsy. “But it’s pretty soon after breakfast to ask for a picnic.”
“If I went in the house to ask,” said Tacy, “I might have to help with the dishes.”
“Better not go,” said Betsy. “But we’ll be hungry by the time we get to the top.” She thought for a moment. “We may have to pretend we’re beggars.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Tacy, her blue eyes beginning to sparkle.
“Why, muss up our hair and dirty our clothes and ask for something to eat at the white house.”
“Oh! Oh!” cried Tacy. It was all she could say.
Just then Tib ran up. She looked so clean in a starched pink chambray dress that Betsy thought perhaps they had better not be beggars.
“What are we going to do?” asked Tib.
“We’re going up on the Big Hill,” said Betsy. “Of course, we have to ask.”
They were eight years old, but they still couldn’t climb the Big Hill without permission; Betsy and Tacy couldn’t; Tib’s mother always told her that she could go wherever Betsy and Tacy were allowed to go. Tib’s house was too far away to run to every time they had to ask permission.
Betsy and Tacy sent Paul, who was Tacy’s little brother, into their houses to ask permission now. Paul trotted into Tacy’s house and into Betsy’s house, and he trotted back with word that they could go. So Betsy and Tacy and Tib started walking up the Big Hill.
Julia was practising her music lesson, and the sound of the scales she was playing flashed out of the house as they passed. It sounded as though Julia were enjoying herself.
“I wouldn’t like to be playing the piano today,” said Betsy.
“Neither would I,” said Tacy.
“Neither would I,” said Tib. “Of course,” she
added, “we don’t know how.”
Neither Betsy nor Tacy would have pointed that out. Tib was always pointing such things out. But Betsy and Tacy liked her just the same.
“We could learn quick enough if we wanted to,” said Betsy. “I can play chopsticks now.”
They came to a ridge where wild roses were in bloom. They stopped to smell them. They passed a thorn apple tree where they would pick thorn apples later. Now the tree was covered with little hard green balls. There were lots of trees on that side of the road and the grass was deep and full of flowers. On the other side was a fenced-in pasture with Mr. Williams’ cow in it.
At last they came to the top of the hill. They could look down now on the roofs of Hill Street. They could see the school house where they all went to school and the chocolate-colored house where Tib lived. They could see all over the town of Deep Valley, ’way to the Big Mill. And deep in the valley they could see a silver ribbon. That was the river.
The top of the hill was flat, and there were oak trees scattered about. The white house stood in the middle. It was a small house with a flower garden at the front. Some people named Ekstrom lived there. Behind the Ekstroms’ house was a ravine, with a spring of water in it, and a brook. Betsy and
Tacy and Tib had been down in the ravine, but not without Julia and Katie.
“Let’s go down in the ravine,” said Betsy.
They took hold of hands.
The way to the ravine was through the Ekstroms’ back yard. Betsy and Tacy and Tib didn’t know the Ekstroms, but they had seen them often going up and down the hill. They didn’t see any of the Ekstroms now. They saw a dog who barked at them in a friendly sort of way. They saw some hens who clucked sociably. And through an open barn door they saw a cow. They went past the kitchen garden and came to the edge of the ravine.
A steep twisting path led into the ravine. The hillside was crowded with trees. There were big trees and seedling trees, old graying trees and fresh fine green ones. The grass was full of red and yellow columbine.
Betsy and Tacy and Tib descended carefully, picking flowers as they went.
All the way down they could hear the brook, and when they reached the bottom they could see it, rushing over its stones. There was a spring with four boards around it. When you leaned over to drink, the water smacked your face. They drank from the spring and the water tasted good, but it wasn’t as good as something to eat would have been.
“I’m hungry,” said Tacy.
“So am I,” said Tib.
“Let’s suck the honey from our columbine,” said Betsy, so they sucked the honey out of all their flowers. But they were still hungry.
Betsy looked around.
“There’s syrup in those maple trees,” she said. “If we’d brought a knife, we could cut a hole and get some.”
“And make a fire and fry pancakes!” cried Tacy. She and Betsy jumped up to hunt for a knife, but Tib stopped them.
“You need flour to make pancakes,” Tib said. Tib knew. She could cook.
“Well I’m hungry,” said Tacy. “I wonder where we’re going to get something to eat.” And she looked at Betsy hard.
Betsy knew she was thinking of what Betsy had said about begging, and she almost wished she hadn’t said it, but she was getting hungrier every minute. She spoke loudly and importantly.
“We
may
have to beg,” she said.
“What’s that?” asked Tib.
“Muss up our hair and dirty our dresses and pretend we need something to eat.”
“We
do
need something to eat,” said Tacy. “No pretend about it.”
“My mother wouldn’t like me to muss up my dress,” said Tib. She meant that her mother wouldn’t
like
her to muss up her dress. She didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it.
“She’d rather have you muss up your dress than starve,” said Betsy. “We might starve to death down in this ravine.”
“Might we?” asked Tib.
“I feel sort of starved already,” said Betsy.
“So do I,” said Tacy. “I feel weak.”
They listened to the spring bubbling out of the ground.
“If we
all
got mussed up,” said Betsy, “maybe our mothers would see that it couldn’t be helped.” So they began to muss each other up.
It was fun mussing each other up. It was such fun that they almost forgot they were hungry. They loosened Betsy’s braids and tangled Tacy’s ringlets and ruffled Tib’s fluffy hair until she looked like a dandelion gone to seed. Then they put mud on one another. Mud on cheeks and noses, and mud on arms and legs. There was plenty of mud beside the brook and they put on plenty. They put it on their dresses and smooched it down with their hands.
When they had finished they began to climb out of the ravine.
“Who’s going to ask for something to eat?” asked Tacy.
“Tib,” said Betsy firmly. “Because she’s the littlest. But you and I will stand right beside her, so we’ll be just as much to blame as she is.”
“That’s right,” said Tib.
They had reached the Ekstroms’ kitchen garden, and when the dog saw them he began to bark. He barked differently now from the way he had barked when they went down. He barked as though he didn’t like the way they looked.
They went past the henhouse, and the hens clucked. They went past the barn, and the cow mooed. They went up to the back door, and the dog barked harder than ever. He yelped and snapped.
The door was open. Only the screen door was closed to keep out flies. There were strips of paper hanging down it, to flutter and scare flies when the door was opened. Between those strips of paper they could see a woman in the kitchen. Betsy knocked.
Mrs. Ekstrom came to the door. She was small and thin. She had yellow hair pulled into a knob and a thin tired face. She looked at Betsy and Tacy and Tib and said, “Heavens and earth!” Then she said, “What happened? What’s the matter?” And she looked at Betsy hard. “You’re the little Ray girl,” she said.
“We’re hungry,” said Tib.
“And the little Kelly girl,” Mrs. Ekstrom continued, staring now at Tacy.
“We’re hungry,” said Tib.
“And the little Muller girl, I think.
Aren’t
you the little Muller girl?” she asked addressing Tib.
“We’re hungry,” said Tib.
“Hungry!” said Mrs. Ekstrom. “You’re lots besides hungry. What happened to you anyway?”
“We got hungry,” said Tib.
Betsy and Tacy didn’t say a word, but they tried to act as hungry as they could. Betsy put her hands over her stomach and leaned forward and groaned. Tacy forgot to be bashful and she opened and shut her mouth. She opened and shut her mouth and made queer hungry noises.
Mrs. Ekstrom’s face broke into a smile.
She opened the kitchen door to let them come in, and gave them a paper to stand on.
They had come to a good house to be hungry in, Betsy saw at once. Mrs. Ekstrom was baking cookies. They had just come out of the oven, and they smelled delicious. They were sugar cookies. Betsy and Tacy and Tib watched Mrs. Ekstrom while she lifted cookies on a pancake turner and filled a plate.
She put the plateful of cookies down on the table.
“Wait while I get some milk,” she said, and she
went into the pantry.
Betsy and Tacy and Tib looked at the cookies. They looked good.
While Mrs. Ekstrom was in the pantry, the dog started to bark. His bark didn’t sound angry any more. It was just the friendly sociable kind of bark he had barked when they first went through the dooryard. Steps sounded outside and someone knocked on the kitchen door. Mrs. Ekstrom darted out of the pantry.
“How do you do, Mrs. Ekstrom?” came a voice. It was Julia’s voice, sounding very grown-up; and Julia could sound extremely grown-up although she was not yet eleven. “Have you seen Betsy and Tacy and Tib, Mrs. Ekstrom?” Julia asked.