Betsy-Tacy and Tib (6 page)

First she washed all the dishes, and Betsy and Tacy wiped them. Then she washed the pan and scrubbed off the stove and table. She even swept the floor. The broom was taller than Tib but she knew how to use it. She swept into every nook and corner.

It was growing dark and the kitchen looked as clean, almost, as it had been when they began.

The front door opened and Mr. and Mrs. Ray and Julia and Margaret came in. Mrs. Ray was smiling and looked pretty; she smelled of violet perfume.

“Did you have a good time, darlings?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am, we did,” said Betsy, Tacy and Tib.

“Did you warm up your cocoa?” asked Julia, putting down her music roll.

“Yes, we did, and we ate up the cupcakes,” Betsy answered.

“You left a nice clean kitchen,” Mrs. Ray said. She walked around sniffing. “There’s an odd smell though,” she said.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib looked at each other. They were glad when Mr. Ray said, “Hop into your coats, T and T. I’ll take you both home.”

In the middle of the night that night, Tib had a stomach ache. She got up and went down to the kitchen and took a little soda. Tib knew that soda was good for stomach aches.

And Tacy had a stomach ache, and Katie took
care of her. Katie was bossy sometimes, but she was nice to have around when you felt sick.

And Betsy had a stomach ache, a bad one, and Julia was good to her too. But after Julia had given her peppermint and tucked her in, she said:

“Did you and Tacy and Tib have anything to eat besides those cupcakes and that cocoa?”

“Let’s see!” said Betsy. “Did we or didn’t we?”

After a moment she said, “Julia! Do you know what it would make if you took everything there is in the cupboard and cooked it up together?”

“Goodness!” said Julia. “You must be sick to think of such a thing!”

O
NE DAY that winter, when Tib’s mother was going shopping, Betsy and Tacy and Tib kept house alone at Tib’s house. That is, they were almost alone. Matilda was there but she was taking care of Hobbie; and Freddie was there, but he was out coasting on the knoll. Mrs. Muller said that they could have the run of the
house. For Mrs. Ray had told her what good children they were when they kept house alone at Betsy’s house.

“She said that you left the most spic and span kitchen!” Mrs. Muller said. “Well, good-by, my dears. Matilda has some nice fresh apple cake for you.”

And Mrs. Muller went away downtown.

It was fun to have Tib’s house all to themselves. Betsy and Tacy knew it well by now, but it still charmed them … the colored glass in the front door, the tower room with its blue velvet draperies, the back parlor with its broad window seat where they loved to sit and look at pictures of beautiful ladies in
Munsey’s Magazine.

The day they were left alone they found the most beautiful lady of all but she wasn’t in a magazine.

Tib had taken them up to her mother’s room to show them the new curtains. They were made of white lace over pale pink silk, threaded with pink satin ribbon and tied back with pink satin bows. The large room stretched across the front of the house, with an alcove beside it where Hobbie’s bed was placed. Betsy and Tacy were roving about, admiring the curtains and the bureau with its bottles of perfume and the silver-backed mirrors and brushes, when Betsy picked up a framed photograph.

“Tib!” she cried. “Come here! Tell me who this is.”

Her tone was so excited that Tacy came running
to look at the picture. Tib glanced at it and said:

“Why, that’s Aunt Dolly.”

“Your
aunt?
” asked Betsy. “Really? Did you ever actually
see
her?”

“Of course,” said Tib. “I saw her every day when we lived in Milwaukee.”

“Is she as beautiful as this?” asked Betsy.

Tib examined the photograph earnestly.

“Well, that looks just like her,” she answered.

Betsy gazed, and Tacy gazed too. This was certainly a most beautiful lady. She was leaning against a marble pillar on which her elbow rested while her hand supported daintily her small exquisite head. A long train curled about her feet, making her slender rounded figure look as though it had been carved. She had masses of soft blonde hair and a doll-like face.

“She looks like Tib,” said Tacy.

“Yes, she does,” said Betsy.

“I’m supposed to look like her,” said Tib. “But I don’t expect I’ll ever be that pretty.”

Betsy and Tacy turned to look at her.

“You’re quite pretty now, Tib,” Betsy said.

“Especially when you’re dressed up,” said Tacy.

“I’m too tanned,” said Tib.

She picked up her mother’s mirror and inspected her small tanned face while Betsy and Tacy gazed at the photograph, heaving great sighs of admiration.

But they couldn’t look at the photograph forever, so at last they put it down. Tib was still gazing into the mirror.

“I’m not looking at myself any more,” she explained. “I’m looking at the ceiling. It looks different in the mirror. See?”

She handed the mirror to Betsy and Tacy and they peered in. Sure enough, the ceiling did look different. It didn’t look like a ceiling. It looked like the floor of a new mysterious room.

“It’s a Mirror Room,” Betsy said.

The Mirror Room was carpeted with tiny pink flowers, for the ceiling wall paper was covered with tiny pink flowers. They matched the big pink flowers which twined around silver poles on the walls of the room. At the top of the wall, next to the ceiling, was a border with silver leaves and large and small pink flowers all together. If you tilted the mirror just a little, you could see that border.

Holding the mirror between them, and looking down into its depths, Betsy and Tacy started to walk. They walked around the room and into the alcove, bumping a bit, but that didn’t matter; Hobbie wasn’t in his bed; he was down in the kitchen watching Matilda iron.

“It’s fun walking through this Mirror Room. You try it,” said Betsy, offering the mirror to Tib.

“I’ll go get mirrors for us all,” said Tib. And she did. She brought her father’s shaving mirror for Tacy and Matilda’s mirror for herself. Matilda’s mirror was a big square mirror in a dark brown frame. It was heavy. But Tib didn’t mind.

They walked out into the hall, looking in their mirrors as they went.

“We’ll explore this whole Mirror Palace,” Betsy said. “That’s what it is … a Mirror Palace.”

“Who lives in it?” asked Tacy.

“Aunt Dolly,” said Betsy. “She’s the Queen.”

Tib was so surprised that she almost dropped Matilda’s mirror. She stared at Betsy with her round blue eyes.

“Why, Betsy!” she cried. “My Aunt Dolly lives in a flat in Milwaukee.”

“She used to, maybe,” Betsy said.

“But I’d know if she lived in this house,” said Tib.

“The Mirror Palace has no connection with this house,” said Betsy.

“Oh,” said Tib. She still looked surprised, but she was beginning to get used to Betsy. She had played with her for two whole years. So when Tacy said, “Come on! Let’s explore the Mirror Palace,” Tib said, “All right.” They formed a line and descended the stairs, each holding fast to her mirror with one hand and grasping the rail with the other.

In the downstairs hall the floor of the Palace was leathery brown. That was because the ceiling wall paper was leathery brown. In the front and back parlors, the floor became delicately blue, with darker blue scrolls visible when you tilted the mirror just a little. The dining room was the nicest of all. There the floor was thrillingly red and gold.

“This is the Throne Room,” Betsy said, and they walked around the Throne Room. “Now,” she continued, “we’ll inspect the Royal Kitchens.”

They started toward the kitchen but Tib checked them.

“We’d better not go out there,” she said. “Matilda’s ironing. Maybe she wouldn’t like this walking
around with mirrors. Especially when one of them’s hers.”

“Maybe not,” Betsy and Tacy agreed.

“Anyway,” said Tacy, looking around the dining room with its rich red and gold walls, the sideboard laden with silver and the long table spread with a heavy woven cloth and a silver dish filled with oranges, “Anyway I think it would be fun to play right here in the Throne Room.”

“Oh yes!” cried Betsy. “We’ll make a throne for Aunt Dolly.”

“But where
is
Aunt Dolly?” asked Tib.

“When you look in the mirror,” said Betsy, “that makes Aunt Dolly.”

Betsy pulled out Tib’s father’s armchair which sat at the head of the table, and Tib ran to get her mother’s paisley shawl. It was old; she was allowed to play with it. They draped it over the chair and pushed the chair up against the window. The window’s red draperies made a majestic background.

Tacy was inspecting the sideboard.

“Some of this silver would come in handy around a throne,” she said. “But maybe we shouldn’t touch it.”

“We’ll put it all back,” Betsy said.

“You decorate while I get something,” said Tib. She ran away and came back wearing her mother’s feather boa.

At the right of the throne Betsy and Tacy had put the silver coffee urn; at the left, the silver teapot.

“She can use this big ladle for a sceptre,” said Betsy. “But what will we do for a crown?”

“The sugar bowl’s a good shape,” said Tacy. “But it’s full of sugar lumps.”

“The spoon holder,” said Betsy, “is just the thing.”

So they dumped out the tea spoons and clamped the spoon holder upside down upon Tib’s head. Her little yellow curls sprang out beneath the silver bowl. With the fluffy feather boa she looked supremely queenlike.

“Now look into your mirror and you’ll turn into Queen Dolly,” Betsy cried.

Tib looked into the mirror and Betsy took the silver fruit dish and went down upon one knee.

“Will your Majesty deign to eat an orange?” she asked.

Tacy began to giggle as she seized the sugar bowl and bowed.

“Some sugar, I prithee, Queen,” she said.

Queen Dolly crooked her little finger and accepted an orange and a sugar lump.

Just then Freddie burst in through the swinging door. He had left his sled outside, of course, and his rubbers beside the kitchen door, and his coat and cap and muffler in the kitchen closet, but his pink
cheeks brought in the out-of-doors.

“Whatcha playing?” he asked.

“We’re playing Mirror Palace,” Betsy answered. “Tib’s playing she’s Aunt Dolly.”

“And Aunt Dolly’s the Queen,” Tacy explained.

Freddie looked puzzled. He knew how to play that someone was another person, but he hadn’t ever played that someone was
two
other persons. He thought he had better change the subject.

“We’re not supposed to play in the dining room,” he said.

“Why, Freddie!” Betsy cried. “We’re not playing in the dining room. This is the Throne Room.” And she explained about the Mirror Palace. Freddie looked down into the mirror Tib was holding, and he could see for himself what a shining mysterious room the mirror held.

“But Tib ought to be upside down,” he remarked.

“What?” exclaimed Betsy and Tacy.

“Her feet ought to be on the Mirror Palace floor.”

Betsy and Tacy looked dismayed. It was perfectly true. If the ceiling of the dining room, reflected in the mirror, was the floor of the Mirror Palace, then Tib’s reflected feet ought to be where her head was.

“You ought to be standing on your head,” said Betsy.

“That’s easy,” said Tib.

For Tib was a dancer. It wasn’t a bit of trouble for Tib to stand on her head. She took off her spoonholder crown and put Matilda’s mirror carefully on the seat of the throne. She jumped to the arms of the chair and went upside down, her head upon the mirror, her legs stretching straight and true into the air.

Betsy and Tacy and Freddie, looking down into the mirror, had a fleeting dazzling vision … Queen Dolly with her dainty feet pointing toward the floor. But the vision was fleeting, indeed!

The kitchen door swung open and Matilda, her arms full of freshly ironed linen, entered the dining room.