Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (recommended ebook reader TXT) 📕

learned to read her teachers’ faces very accurately, and she guessed by

their expression whether the answer she gave was the right one. And that

was the only way she could tell. You never heard of any other child who

did that, did you?

They had mental arithmetic, of course (Elizabeth Ann thought it just her

luck!), and of course it was those hateful eights and sevens, and of

course right away poor Betsy got the one she hated most, 7x8. She never

knew that one! She said dispiritedly that it was 54, remembering vaguely

that it was somewhere in the fifties. Ralph burst out scornfully, “56!”

and the teacher, as if she wanted to take him down for showing off,

pounced on him with 9 x 8. He answered, without drawing breath, 72.

Elizabeth Ann shuddered at his accuracy. Ellen, too, rose to the

occasion when she got 6 x 7, which Elizabeth Ann could sometimes

remember and sometimes not. And then, oh horrors! It was her turn again!

Her turn had never before come more than twice during a mental

arithmetic lesson. She was so startled by the swiftness with which the

question went around that she balked on 6 x 6, which she knew perfectly.

And before she could recover Ralph had answered and had rattled out a

108 in answer to 9 x 12; and then Ellen slapped down an 84 on top of 7 x

12. Good gracious! Who could have guessed, from the way they read, they

could do their tables like this! She herself missed on 7 x 7 and was

ready to cry. After this the teacher didn’t call on her at all, but

showered questions down on the other two, who sent the answers back with

sickening speed.

After the lesson the teacher said, smiling, “Well, Betsy, you were right

about your arithmetic. I guess you’d better recite with Eliza for a

while. She’s doing second-grade work. I shouldn’t be surprised if, after

a good review with her, you’d be able to go on with the third-grade

work.”

Elizabeth Ann fell back on the bench with her mouth open. She felt

really dizzy. What crazy things the teacher said! She felt as though she

was being pulled limb from limb.

“What’s the matter?” asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered fact.

“Why—why,” said Elizabeth Ann, “I don’t know what I am at all. If I’m

second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade

spelling, what grade AM I?”

The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. “YOU aren’t any grade at

all, no matter where you are in school. You’re just yourself, aren’t

you? What difference does it make what grade you’re in! And what’s the

use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you

don’t know your multiplication table?”

“Well, for goodness’ SAKES!” ejaculated Elizabeth Ann, feeling very much

as though somebody had stood her suddenly on her head.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked the teacher again.

This time Elizabeth Ann didn’t answer, because she herself didn’t know

what the matter was. But I do, and I’ll tell you. The matter was that

never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always

thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was

ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there

to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so

she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. Of course,

she didn’t really know that till she did come to be grown up, but she

had her first dim notion of it in that moment, and it made her feel the

way you do when you’re learning to skate and somebody pulls away the

chair you’ve been leaning on and says, “Now, go it alone!”

The teacher waited a minute, and then, when Elizabeth Ann didn’t say

anything more, she rang a little bell. “Recess time,” she said, and as

the children marched out and began putting on their wraps she followed

them into the cloak-room, pulled on a warm, red cap and a red sweater,

and ran outdoors herself. “Who’s on my side!” she called, and the

children came darting out after her. Elizabeth Ann had dreaded the first

recess time with the strange children, but she had no time to feel shy,

for in a twinkling she was on one end of a long rope with a lot of her

schoolmates, pulling with all her might against the teacher and two of

the big boys. Nobody had looked at her curiously, nobody had said

anything to her beyond a loud, “Come on, Betsy!” from Ralph, who was at

the head on their side.

They pulled and they pulled, digging their feet into the ground and

bracing themselves against the rocks which stuck up out of the

playground. Sometimes the teacher’s side yanked them along by quick

jerks, and then they’d all set their feet hard when Ralph shouted out,

“Now, ALL TOGETHER!” and they’d slowly drag the other side back. And all

the time everybody was shouting and yelling together with the

excitement. Betsy was screaming too, and when a wagon passing by stopped

and a big, broad-shouldered farmer jumped down laughing, put the end of

the rope over his shoulder, and just walked off with the whole lot of

them till he had pulled them clear off their feet, Elizabeth Ann found

herself rolling over and over with a breathless, squirming mass of

children, her shrill laughter rising even above the shouts of merriment

of the others. She laughed so she could hardly get up on her feet again,

it was such an unexpected ending to the con test.

The big farmer was laughing too. “You ain’t so smart as you THINK you

are, are you!” he jeered at them good-naturedly. Then he started,

yelling “WHOA there!” to his horses, which had begun to walk on. He had

to run after them with all his might, and just climbed into the back of

the wagon and grabbed the reins the very moment they broke into a trot.

The children laughed, and Ralph shouted after him, “Hi, there, Uncle

Nate! Who’s not so smart as he thinks he is, NOW!” He turned to the

little girls near him. “They ‘most got away from him THAT time!” he

said. “He’s awful foolish about leaving them standing while he’s funning

or something. He thinks he’s awful funny, anyhow. Some day they’ll run

away on him and THEN where’ll he be?”

Elizabeth Ann was thinking to herself that this was one of the queerest

things that had happened to her even in this queer place. Never, why

never once, had any grown-up, passing the playground of the big brick

building, DREAMED of such a thing as stopping for a minute to play. They

never even looked at the children, any more than if they were in another

world. In fact she had felt the school was in another world.

“Ralph, it’s your turn to get the water,” said the teacher, handing him

a pail. “Want to go along?” said Ralph gruffly to Ellen and Betsy. He

led the way and the little girls walked after him. Now that she was out

of a crowd Elizabeth Ann felt all her shyness come down on her like a

black cloud, drying up her mouth and turning her hands and feet cold as

ice. Into one of these cold hands she felt small, warm fingers slide.

She looked down and there was little Molly trotting by her side, turning

her blue eyes up trustfully. “Teacher says I can go with you if you’ll

take care of me,” she said. “She never lets us first-graders go without

somebody bigger to help us over the log.”

As she spoke they came to a small, clear, swift brook, crossed by a big

white-birch log. Elizabeth Ann was horribly afraid to set foot on it,

but with little Molly’s hand holding tightly to hers she was ashamed to

say she was afraid. Ralph skipped across, swinging the pail to show how

easy it was for him. Ellen followed more slowly, and then—oh, don’t you

wish Aunt Frances could have been there!—Betsy shut her teeth together

hard, put Molly ahead of her, took her hand, and started across. As a

matter of fact Molly went along as sure-footed as a little goat, having

done it a hundred times, and it was she who steadied Elizabeth Ann. But

nobody knew this, Molly least of all.

Ralph took a drink out of a tin cup standing on a stump near by, dipped

the pail into a deep, clear pool, and started back to the school. Ellen

took a drink and offered the cup to Betsy, very shyly, without looking

up. After they had all three had a drink they stood there for a moment,

much embarrassed. Then Ellen said, in a very small voice, “Do you like

dolls with yellow hair the best?”

Now it happened that Elizabeth Ann had very positive convictions on this

point which she had never spoken of, because Aunt Frances didn’t REALLY

care about dolls. She only pretended to, to be company for her little

niece.

“No, I DON’T!” answered the little girl emphatically. “I get just sick

and tired of always seeing them with that old, bright-yellow hair! I

like them to have brown hair, just the way most little girls really do!”

Ellen lifted her eyes and smiled radiantly. “Oh, so do I!” she said.

“And that lovely old doll your folks have has got brown hair. Will you

let me play with her some time?”

“My folks?” said Elizabeth Ann blankly.

“Why yes, your Aunt Abigail and your Uncle Henry.”

“Have they got a DOLL?” said Betsy, thinking this was the very climax of

Putney queerness.

“Oh my, yes!” said Molly, eagerly. “She’s the one Mrs. Putney had when

she was a little girl. And she’s got the loveliest clothes! She’s in the

hair-trunk under the eaves in the attic. They let me take her down once

when I was there with Mother. And Mother said she guessed, now a little

girl had come there to live, they’d let her have her down all the time.

I’ll bring mine over next Saturday, if you want me to. Mine’s got yellow

hair, but she’s real pretty anyhow. If Father’s going to mill that day,

he can leave me there for the morning.”

[Illustration with caption: Betsy shut her teeth together hard, and

started across.]

Elizabeth Ann had not understood more than one word in five of this, but

just then the school-bell rang and they went back, little Molly helping

Elizabeth Ann over the log and thinking she was being helped, as before.

They ran along to the little building, and there I’m going to leave

them, because I think I’ve told enough about their school for ONE while.

It was only a poor, rough, little district school anyway, that no

Superintendent of Schools would have looked at for a minute, except to

sniff.