Betsy-Tacy and Tib (3 page)

And when Margaret heard Paul cry, she began to cry. She had been almost asleep with all Tib’s jiggling, but now she woke up and began to cry. And Hobbie woke up and began to cry too. But Paul cried hardest of all.

“Stop, Paul!” cried Betsy from the maple. “Hear how it’s going to come out!”

Paul lifted a streaming face and sniffed.

“Betsin and Tacin and Tibbin felt bad just the way you do.”

“Did they?” asked Paul, sniffing.

“Certainly they did. They didn’t want to keep on being birds after they knew how everybody felt. And Betsin said, ‘I don’t believe we’d better be birds any more. We’ve had lots of fun being birds, but I think it’s time we stopped.’ And Tacin and Tibbin said that was exactly how they felt. So Tibbin changed herself out of a bird, and she climbed down the maple. And Tacin changed
herself
out of a bird, and
she
climbed down the maple. And Betsin changed
herself
out of a bird, and
she
climbed down the maple. Like this,” said Betsy.

And she climbed down the maple.

Just then Betsy’s mother came out the kitchen door with some gingerbread. Paul had stopped crying, but Margaret and Hobbie were still crying
hard, and Betsy’s mother thought that perhaps some gingerbread would help. So she brought out enough for everybody.

Julia and Katie came down from the Big Hill and they had some too. Then Julia went into the house to practise her music lesson and Katie took Paul home to wash him up for supper. Mrs. Ray had already taken Margaret in, and Tib thought that perhaps she had better wheel Hobbie home.

Betsy and Tacy walked a piece with her. They always did. They always walked as far as the middle of the vacant lot. They were talking as they walked, about what they would do up on the Big Hill after they were allowed to go up there again. All of a sudden Tib interrupted.

“Betsy,” she said. “I know a joke on you.”

“Do you?” asked Betsy.

“You didn’t ever fly down out of the maple.”

“Didn’t
I?” asked Betsy, sounding surprised.

“No,” said Tib. “You didn’t. I did. And Tacy did. But you got to telling that story and forgot all about it. It’s a joke on you,” said Tib, laughing.

Betsy looked at Tacy but Tacy was looking the other way. She was looking the other way hard.

“Oh,” said Betsy. “Well here’s the middle of the vacant lot. We’ll see you in the morning.”

S
TRANGELY ENOUGH, soon after they tried to learn to fly, Betsy and Tacy and Tib saw a Flying Lady. It happened this way: A Street Fair came to Deep Valley. A carnival, some people called it. It was a little like a circus, but it lasted for a week. And instead of being held out on the circus ground, it was held on Front Street.
Front Street was decorated with bunting and flags. There were tents and booths at every corner. The air was filled with excitement from the music of the merry-go-round and the voices of men who shouted in front of the tents, urging people to come in.

There were plenty of people to go into all the tents, for the sidewalks were crowded. Men and women and children walked up and down, up and down Front Street, buying whips and balloons and lemonade and popcorn and peanuts and ice cream. There were open booths where you could shoot at dolls, and if you hit a doll you won it. Tacy’s brother George won a doll, and he gave it to Tacy.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib went to the Street Fair with their fathers and mothers. They rode on the merry-go-round and they rode on the Ferris Wheel, rising high into the quiet air above the dust and glitter. The Street Fair was full of wonders, but one surpassed all others, and that was the Flying Lady.

Mrs. Muller invited Betsy and Tacy to go with Tib to see the Flying Lady. It was fun to go to the Street Fair all together. They wore their best dimity dresses, trimmed with lace and insertion, and their best summer hats with flowers and ribbons on them. Mrs. Muller looked nice too. She wore a shirt waist and skirt and a round straw hat. She bought each one a bag of popcorn; it was hot and buttery.

Before they went into the show they stood in front of the tent eating popcorn and listening to the man on the platform.

“Right this way!” he shouted through a megaphone, pacing up and down, dripping sweat. “Right this way to the one and only Flying Lady! She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies! Come right in and see for yourself, folks! It’s the wonder of two continents. It’s the thrill of a lifetime! And all for one dime … two small nickels!”

Betsy touched Mrs. Muller’s sleeve.

“Is it time to go in, Mrs. Muller?”

“Not yet,” Mrs. Muller answered.

“Right this way,” the man kept on shouting, “to the one and only Flying Lady. She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies! The show’s beginning, folks. Step right up and get your tickets. You can’t afford to miss a moment of this beautiful, educational, inspiring, astounding, spectacular exhibition….”

Tacy poked Betsy, and Betsy looked at Mrs. Muller sideways. She hated to ask again. But she knew Tacy was worried, and she was worried too. Maybe Mrs. Muller wasn’t listening? Maybe she hadn’t heard what the man had said about the show beginning?

“Do you s’pose we ought to go in, Mrs. Muller?” she asked.

“There’s plenty of time,” Mrs. Muller answered.

The man was pacing up and down now like a lion in a cage.

“Right this way,” he shouted, “to the one and only Flying Lady! She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies! Don’t run, folks! But hurry just a little! Hurry just a——–”

Tacy poked Betsy again, a hard jab this time. Betsy knew it wouldn’t be polite to keep on asking Mrs. Muller to go in, so she poked Tib, as a hint that Tib might ask her. Tib said right out loud, “What do you want, Betsy? What are you poking me for?” That was just like Tib. Fortunately Mrs. Muller was ready to go in anyway. She said, “Well, come along, children!”

She bought the tickets from a lady with golden hair. The lady had three golden teeth too; they were right in front, and they showed when she smiled. She smiled at them all, but especially at Tib, and she said to Mrs. Muller, “She looks as though she could fly herself.” At that Tacy poked Betsy, and Betsy poked Tib, and this time Tib understood what the poke meant, and they all began to laugh.

There were plenty of seats empty. In fact there were only three or four seats filled. But Betsy and Tacy didn’t mind that. It was fun to be able to choose the seats they wanted. They tried seats in the
back of the tent, and they tried seats in the middle, and they tried seats in the very front row.

“We ought to sit close,” Betsy whispered, “because we’re trying to learn to fly ourselves. We ought to see how she does it.”

“That’s right,” said Tacy. And Tib thought so too. So they sat down in the very front row.

The tent was darker than most tents. There were heavy curtains hung all around to make it extra dark. And of course there were curtains concealing the stage. They looked like black velvet.

Out in front the man was still shouting: “She’s beautiful! She’s marvelous! She flies!” Sometimes he said that the show was just beginning. But it didn’t begin. More people came in though; and more, and more.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib finished their popcorn and wiped their fingers on the handkerchiefs which their mothers had pinned to their dresses. They looked around until they had seen everything there was to see. Still the show didn’t begin.

“When do you think it will begin, Mamma?” asked Tib.

“Pretty soon,” Mrs. Muller answered.

And pretty soon it did.

It began with music which came from behind the curtains. And the music changed everything. It
brought magic into the dark tent. The piece being played was a piece Julia played. It was named
Narcissus.

“Dee,
dee
, dee,
dee
, dee dee dee dee dee dee
dee.”

Betsy and Tacy and Tib took hold of hands.

The curtains concealing the stage were drawn aside, but the stage was as dark as a cave. It was hung with black draperies, and the music made things mysterious.

“Dee,
dee
, dee,
dee
, dee dee dee dee dee dee
dee.”
Just as Julia played it.

“Dee,
dee

“Dee,
dee….”

And then something white appeared, parting the black draperies which mistily filled the stage. The something white was rising slowly up. Wings (or arms) were waving in time to the music.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib leaned forward, staring. Their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and they saw that the floating figure was indeed that of a lady. She was dressed in white robes which covered her arms (or wings). Red ringlets like Tacy’s hung down across her shoulders. A bright light shone on her face, but the rest of her was in shadow.

“Dee,
dee,
dee,
dee
, dee dee dee dee dee dee
dee.”

She smiled at the people as she flew.

“Dee,
dee
, dee,
dee,
dee dee dee dee dee dee
dee.”

Up and down she went, in time to the music.

And not only up and down, but from side to side of the stage. Betsy squeezed Tacy’s hands, and Tib’s, and Tacy and Tib squeezed back. Their eyes strained through the darkness in order not to miss a movement of the glowing airy figure flying up and down, back and across, to that tune which Julia could play.

They could have watched for hours, but the show did not last very long. In no time at all the curtains were drawn, the music had stopped, and people were clapping their hands and pushing out of the tent. Mrs. Muller, with Betsy, Tacy and Tib, came out last of all.

“Did you like it?” Mrs. Muller asked.

“Oh, yes!” said Betsy and Tacy and Tib. At first that was all they could say.

Mrs. Muller took them across the street to Heinz’s Restaurant, and each one had a dish of ice cream. It was vanilla ice cream, and they had vanilla wafers with it. They talked about the Flying Lady as they ate.

“She looked like Tacy, Mamma,” Tib said.

“Yes, she did,” said Mrs. Muller.

That made Tacy bashful.

“I wish it hadn’t been quite so dark,” Betsy said.

“I think they made it dark on purpose,” Mrs. Muller answered, smiling.

“I wish they hadn’t,” Betsy said. But she didn’t say why.

Of course the reason was that if it hadn’t been so dark she and Tacy and Tib could have learned more about flying. Tacy and Tib were thinking the very same thing. But they didn’t discuss that with Mrs. Muller. They doubted that a grown-up would understand.

They told Mrs. Muller that they had had a nice time, and she took Betsy to her father’s shoe store and Tacy to the office where her father sold sewing machines. Betsy and Tacy and Tib all rode home with their fathers, and they didn’t have a chance to discuss the show with each other, until after supper. Then they met on the bench at the top of Hill Street.

They had changed out of their best dresses and taken off their shoes and stockings. It was pleasant to sit with their feet in the dewy grass and talk about the Flying Lady.

“If we look hard,” said Betsy, “maybe we’ll see her flying through the sky.”

“I’ll bet we will,” said Tacy. “If I could fly, I wouldn’t fly just in a dark old tent.”

“Neither would I,” said Tib. “I’d go up in the sky and do tricks.”

They looked all over the sky, but they didn’t see a sign of her. There were no white draperies floating among the pink clouds in the west.

“That’s funny,” said Betsy, “for a sunset would be such fun to fly in.”

The Flying Lady did not come, and the sunset faded. It was almost time to go home when they noticed color in the northern sky, far down over the town. Faint music drifted from the same direction. They knew that it came from the Street Fair.

“My papa and mamma are going there tonight,” Tib said. “My mamma wants my papa to see the Flying Lady.”

Betsy and Tacy looked at each other in sudden understanding. They spoke almost at once.

“Of course!” cried Betsy.

“She’s down there making money!” cried Tacy.

“She couldn’t be flying up here on the hill,” they explained to Tib, “when she’s flying down there in the tent.”

“That’s right,” said Tib. “Well, maybe she’ll fly in the sky tomorrow morning.”

“Let’s come up here early to look,” Betsy said.

And they all ran home.

Betsy and Tacy met on the bench right after breakfast and started looking for the Flying Lady. It was a sunshiny sweet-smelling morning, just the kind of a day it would be fun to fly in. The sky was full of little fat chunks of cloud.

“Marshmallows probably,” said Betsy, “in case she gets hungry.”

“Or cushions in case she gets tired,” said Tacy.

They stared faithfully upward.

They were staring upward so hard that they didn’t see Tib until she called out to them. Then they looked and saw her running up the street. As soon as they saw her, they saw that something was
wrong. And sure enough, as she sat down, she said:

“I know something terrible.”

“What is it?” Betsy asked.

“That Flying Lady,” said Tib, “she doesn’t really fly.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Tacy.

“My papa said so,” said Tib. “He was explaining it at breakfast.”

And Tib explained it to them.

The lady was sitting on one end of an iron bar, she said. The bar was like a see-saw. The lady sat on one end and something heavy sat on the other and moved her up and down, over and across.

“That’s why they kept the tent so dark,” Tib said. “So we couldn’t see the see-saw.”

There was a moment’s stricken silence.

But then Betsy jumped up and began to jump up and down.

“That gives me an idea!” she cried.

“A show!” cried Tacy, reading her mind.

“In our buggy shed!” cried Betsy. “We’ll ask my papa to wheel the surrey out, and we’ll cover the window with a gunny sack, to make the buggy shed as dark as that tent was. And we’ll put a see-saw inside …”

“I know where there’s a lovely plank,” Tacy interrupted.

“We’ll have a curtain across the middle,” Betsy hurried on. “And we’ll put out chunks of wood for seats. And we’ll ask admission, five pins admission and a penny for the grown-ups. Julia could play
Narcissus
, but the piano’s too far away.”

“We could hum it,” Tacy said.

But Tib had a better plan than that.

“Tom can play it on his violin,” she said.

They knew a little boy named Tom who could play the violin. He could play
Narcissus.