Betsy-Tacy and Tib (8 page)

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kelly,” Mrs. Ray said. “I’m sure it was Betsy’s idea.”

“We did it to remember each other by,” said Tacy.

But nobody seemed to pay any attention.

Julia and Katie had been playing hop scotch. They ran to see what was the matter.

“Well, for goodness’ sake!” they cried. “For
goodness’ sake!”

Paul had been racing two carts down the terrace. He ran to see what was the matter too.

Mrs. Kelly wiped her eyes and took off her apron.

“I’ll go along with you to Mrs. Muller’s,” she said to Mrs. Ray.

And Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Kelly and Julia and Katie and Paul and Margaret and Betsy and Tacy and Tib
went down the street and through the vacant lot to Mrs. Muller’s.

“I’m glad you’re all coming along,” said Tib.

And it was a good thing that there were plenty of people on hand to explain to Mrs. Muller. For Mrs. Muller didn’t like it at all that half of Tib’s hair was cut off. Mrs. Muller was proud of Tib. She was proud of how pretty and dainty she was, and of
how she could dance. She was proud of her yellow curls.

At sight of those shorn yellow curls Mrs. Muller turned white. She stood up … she had been embroidering a dress for Tib under the oak tree on the knoll.

“Tib,” she said. “Go to your room. You are going to be punished.”

“Mrs. Muller,” said Mrs. Ray, “I am so afraid this is one of Betsy’s ideas. Let’s talk it all over.”

“Let’s find out what they did it for,” Mrs. Kelly said.

“All right,” said Mrs. Muller.

Betsy swallowed. She swallowed hard.

“I thought,” she said, “that we ought to have some of each other’s hair to remember each other by.”

“It’s because I was so sick,” said Tacy.

“And I might get sick too,” said Tib, “and so might Betsy.”

“So we cut off a little of each other’s hair to put in our lockets,” explained Betsy.

And they showed their mothers their pill boxes full of brown and red and yellow hair.

Mrs. Ray looked at the pill boxes and she began to laugh. She had been very angry, but she could get over being angry fast. Mr. Ray said it was on account of her hair, which was red like Tacy’s. Mrs. Kelly began to laugh too, although she was wiping her eyes again. And at last Mrs. Muller began to laugh. She called Freddie.

“Freddie,” she said, “will you ask Matilda to bring me the scissors, please?”

And Matilda brought the scissors, and Mrs. Muller cut off what was left of Tacy’s long red
ringlets and of Tib’s short yellow curls and she cut off Betsy’s one remaining braid.

“At least,” she said as she clipped, “it is summer time. And short hair will be cool. But just the same,” she said to Tib, “you are going to be punished.”

“And so is Betsy,” said Mrs. Ray, “very severely too.”

“And so is Tacy,” Mrs. Kelly added.

But Mrs. Kelly hated to punish Tacy because she had had the diphtheria. She took Tacy’s long red ringlets and put them in a candy box and kept them in a bureau drawer.

I
T WAS strange that Betsy and Tacy and Tib ever did things which grown-ups thought were naughty, for they tried so hard to be good. They were very religious. Betsy was a Baptist, and Tacy was a Catholic, and Tib was an Episcopalian.

They loved to sit on Tacy’s back fence and talk about God.

Tacy’s back fence was a very good place for such talk. There wasn’t a soul around to listen except the cow, and sometimes the horse, munching and stamping behind them. And above the crowding treetops there was a fine view of sky, the place where God lived.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib were talking about Him one morning. They were looking up at the great fleecy clouds sailing across the sky.

“It will be fun living up there after we die,” Betsy said. “We’ll all be so beautiful … we’ll look like Aunt Dolly.”

“Tib looks like her already,” Tacy said.

“Not since I got my hair cut,” said Tib. “I’m not very pretty since I got my hair cut.”

There was a pause.

“Well, you’ll have long hair in Heaven,” Betsy said. “All of us will. We’ll all be beautiful. And we’ll sail around with palm leaves in our hands. They have good things to eat in Heaven, I imagine. They have ice cream and cake for breakfast even.”

“I’d like that,” said Tib.

“We have to be good though,” Tacy said, “or else we won’t go there.”

“We’re pretty good already,” Betsy said. “We’re lots better than Julia and Katie. Getting up a Club and not inviting us!”

“The stuck-up things!” Tacy said.

Betsy and Tacy and Tib all covered their mouths with their hands and stuck out their tongues three times. They had made an agreement to do this, in public or in private, whenever Julia’s and Katie’s Club was mentioned. Julia’s and Katie’s Club was called the B.H.M. Club. No one under ten years of age had been invited to join. The meetings were held on the Big Hill every Tuesday afternoon. And this was Tuesday morning.

“I know what let’s do!” cried Betsy. “Let’s get up a Club ourselves.”

“Let’s get up a Club about being good,” suggested Tacy.

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” said Tib.

“Well, we can’t think about fun all the time if we want to go to Heaven,” said Betsy.

“That’s right,” said Tacy. “The saints didn’t have much fun; I’ll tell you that. They used to wear hair shirts.”

“Did they?” asked Betsy. “What for?”

“To punish themselves. To make themselves gooder. And if they did anything bad they put pebbles in their shoes.”

“What else did they do?” Betsy asked.

Tacy looked at her suspiciously.

“You’re not thinking about doing things like that
in our Club, are you, Betsy?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” said Betsy. She sat thinking, her bare toes curled around a wooden bar of the fence.

“My mamma wouldn’t let me wear any different kind of shirt,” said Tib. She sounded as though she didn’t like the Club.

“Don’t worry,” said Betsy. “We wouldn’t know where to buy hair shirts, even. Besides, we haven’t got any money. What would be a good name for our Club, do you suppose?”

They all thought hard.

Betsy suggested The Christian Kindness Club. And they liked that name because it made such nice initials. Clubs were called by their initials, for their names were kept secret. T.C.K.C. sounded fine.

“What shall we do in our Club?” asked Tib. She still sounded as though she didn’t like it. But Tib always did what Betsy and Tacy wanted to do. She was very pleasant to play with. “Will we have refreshments?” she asked, cheering up.

“No,” said Betsy. “This is a pretty serious Club, this T.C.K.C.”

“It’s about being good,” said Tacy.

“And we’ll never get to be good if we don’t punish ourselves for being bad. A child could see that,” said Betsy. “So in our Club we’ll punish ourselves for being bad.”

“But we haven’t been bad yet,” said Tib. “I wasn’t even intending to be bad.”

“We were born bad,” said Tacy. “Everyone is. Go on, Betsy.”

“The pebbles gave me the idea,” said Betsy. “We’ll take our marble bags and empty out the marbles and pin the bags inside our dresses.”

Tib looked uncomfortable. “Doesn’t that remind you of those pill boxes?” she asked. “There isn’t any cutting off hair in this Club, is there, Betsy?”

“Of course not,” said Betsy. “This is a Being Good Club. We’re going to put stones in those bags around our necks.”

“Oh,” said Tib.

“Every time we do anything bad,” continued Betsy, “we’ll put a stone in. If we’re very bad, we’ll have to put in two stones, or three. By tonight those bags will be bulging full, I imagine …”

“I wouldn’t wonder,” said Tacy, her eyes sparkling.

“I don’t see why,” said Tib. “I thought we were going to be
good.”

Just then the whistles blew for twelve o’clock. And Betsy and Tacy and Tib flew in three directions.

“We’ll meet on my hitching block right after dinner. Bring your bags,” cried Betsy, as she flew.

Betsy hurried through her dinner. Julia was hurrying too, for the B.H.M. Club, so she said, met that afternoon. When Julia said that, Betsy lifted her napkin and poked out her tongue three times.

“Did you choke on something, Betsy?” her father asked.

“No sir,” said Betsy. “Mamma, it’s Julia’s turn to wipe the dishes.”

“Yes,” said her mother, “and you may look after Margaret for me until it’s time for her nap.”

While Julia was wiping the dishes, Betsy hunted up her marbles bag. She emptied the marbles into a box, and pinned the bag inside her red plaid dress. It made a bump on her chest. Taking Margaret’s chubby hand, she ran out to the hitching block as fast as Margaret’s chubby legs would go.

Tacy was already there, and Tib was in sight, wheeling Hobbie’s gocart up the hill.

There was a bump on Tib’s chest beneath her yellow dimity dress; and there was a bump on Tacy’s chest too beneath her striped blue and brown gingham. While they were admiring one another’s bumps Julia and Katie started up the hill, carrying lunch baskets, and a stick and a square flat package which they always took to their Club.

Betsy made a face at them. It was a regular monkey
face, the kind her mother had said she should not make for fear her face would freeze that way.

“Oh dear!” she said. “Now I’ve been bad. I must put a stone in my bag.”

And she found a pebble and put it into her bag.

“I think I’d better put a stone in my bag too,” said Tacy. “Because when Katie told me she was going to her Club I called her stuck up.”

So Tacy put a pebble in
her
bag.

Tib ran to the foot of the hill and called loudly after Julia and Katie.

“You’re stuck up! You’re stuck up!”

And
she
put a pebble in
her
bag.

Margaret and Hobbie began shouting too. “’tuck up! ’tuck up!” But they didn’t understand about the pebbles.

Betsy’s mother came to the door of the little yellow cottage.

“Betsy! Betsy! What are you playing?”

“This is our Club, Mamma. We’ve got a Club too. This is our T.C.K.C. Club.”

“What do you do in your Club?” asked Mrs. Ray.

“Oh,” said Betsy. “We see how good we can be.”

“Well, there’s certainly no harm in that,” said her mother. She went back into the house.

But the Club didn’t work out exactly as they had expected. The little bags didn’t make them want to
be good; it was too much fun putting in the stones.

Tib climbed up on the rain barrel and drabbled the skirts of her yellow dimity dress … two stones.

Tacy climbed the backyard maple and swung by her knees from a branch; her mother had said this was dangerous … one stone.

Betsy ran into the kitchen and got cookies without asking … one stone.

Margaret ran happily screaming in a circle. Hobbie bounced up and down in the gocart and yelled.

“’tone! ’tone!” cried Margaret and Hobbie. For even Margaret and Hobbie knew now that stones were part of the game. But Betsy, Tacy and Tib didn’t give them any stones. They didn’t pay any attention to them.

Betsy’s mother came to the door again.

“A little less noise would be
very
good,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Betsy.

But it was such fun putting stones in their bags. They grew naughtier and naughtier.

Tacy picked a bouquet of her mother’s zinnias. Betsy filled the pockets of her red plaid dress with mud. Tib jumped into the seat of the baker’s wagon, which was standing in front of Mrs. Benson’s house while the baker’s boy offered his tray of jelly rolls and doughnuts at Mrs. Benson’s back door. She took
up the reins and took up the whip and pretended she was going to drive off. She scared the baker’s boy almost to death.

Betsy’s mother came to the door again and said that she thought they were possessed. Tacy’s mother came to
her
door and told Tacy to be a good girl. And Tib’s mother would have come to
her
door too, only Tib’s house was so far away that her mother didn’t know a thing about what was going on.

The bags on their chests grew bigger and bigger. At last they were almost full.

Tacy sat down on the hitching block, red-faced from laughing.

“Gol darn!” she said distinctly.

“Tacy!”
cried Betsy. “That’s
swearing.
That earns you three stones.”

Tacy was proud to be the first to get three stones. The three stones filled her bag.

Betsy looked around for something she could do to earn three stones. She saw her mother’s golf cape airing on the line, and she took it down and put it on and walked to the corner and back.

“That earns me three stones too,” she said, taking it off quickly.

“I know how I can earn three stones,” cried Tib. “Just watch me!”

She ran out into Betsy’s father’s garden and began to pick tomatoes.

“That’s three stones all right,” said Betsy, when Tib returned with the red tomatoes in her skirt.

Now all this time Margaret and Hobbie had been just as bad as they knew how. They had screamed and yelled and kicked and jumped, but no one had given them a single stone. Perhaps Margaret and Hobbie thought that they hadn’t been bad enough. Or perhaps they just liked the looks of the ripe red tomatoes. At any rate Hobbie took a tomato and threw it at Margaret.

Margaret was delighted when the soft tomato broke in a big red splotch on her dress. She threw one at Hobbie. Hobbie threw one at Tacy and Margaret
threw one at Betsy and they both threw one at Tib.

“’tone! ’tone!” cried Hobbie, smearing tomato into his pale yellow hair.

“’tone! ’tone!” shrieked Margaret, rubbing the red juice into her chubby cheeks.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Betsy and Tacy and Tib. Betsy’s mother came out just then. And after that the Club wasn’t much fun for a while. Betsy and Margaret were motioned into the house in a terrible silence, and the door closed behind them. Tacy was called home, and the door closed behind her too. And Tib took Hobbie home, but she cleaned him
up first, the best she could, at Tacy’s pump.

Down on the back fence behind Tacy’s barn that night, Betsy, Tacy and Tib counted their stones. Tib had the most. But when they were counted she threw them away.