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

And lots of times he hasn’t anything on under those horrid old overalls

either! I can see his bare skin through the torn places.”

“I wish he didn’t have to sit so near me,” said Betsy complainingly.

“He’s SO dirty.”

“Well, I don’t want him near ME, either!” cried all the other little

girls at once. Ralph glanced up at them frowning, from where he knelt

with his middle finger crooked behind a marble ready for a shot. He

looked as he always did, very rough and half-threatening. “Oh, you girls

make me sick!” he said. He sent his marble straight to the mark,

pocketed his opponent’s, and stood up, scowling at the little mothers.

“I guess if you had to live the way he does you’d be dirty! Half the

time he don’t get anything to eat before he comes to school, and if my

mother didn’t put up some extra for him in my box he wouldn’t get any

lunch either. And then you go and jump on him!”

“Why doesn’t his own mother put up his lunch?” Betsy challenged their

critic.

“He hasn’t got any mother. She’s dead,” said Ralph, turning away with

his hands in his pockets. He yelled to the boys, “Come on, fellers,

beat-che to the bridge and back!” and was off, with the others racing at

his heels.

“Well, anyhow, I don’t care; he IS dirty and horrid!” said Stashie

emphatically, looking over at the drooping, battered little figure,

leaning against the school door, listlessly kicking at a stone.

But Betsy did not say anything more just then.

The teacher, who “boarded ‘round,” was staying at Putney Farm at that

time, and that evening, as they all sat around the lamp in the south

room, Betsy looked up from her game of checkers with Uncle Henry and

asked, “How can anybody drink up stockings?”

“Mercy, child! what are you talking about?” asked Aunt Abigail.

Betsy repeated what Anastasia Monahan had said, and was flattered by the

instant, rather startled attention given her by the grown-ups. “Why, I

didn’t know that Bud Walker had taken to drinking again!” said Uncle

Henry. “My! That’s too bad!”

“Who takes care of that child anyhow, now that poor Susie is dead?” Aunt

Abigail asked of everybody in general.

“Is he just living there ALONE, with that good-for-nothing stepfather?

How do they get enough to EAT?” said Cousin Ann, looking troubled.

Apparently Betsy’s question had brought something half forgotten and

altogether neglected into their minds. They talked for some time after

that about ‘Lias, the teacher confirming what Betsy and Stashie had

said.

“And we sitting right here with plenty to eat and never raising a hand!”

cried Aunt Abigail.

“How you WILL let things slip out of your mind!” said Cousin Ann

remorsefully.

It struck Betsy vividly that ‘Lias was not at all the one they blamed

for his objectionable appearance. She felt quite ashamed to go on with

the other things she and the little girls had said, and fell silent,

pretending to be very much absorbed in her game of checkers.

“Do you know,” said Aunt Abigail suddenly, as though an inspiration had

just struck her, “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that Elmore Pond

might adopt ‘Lias if he was gone at the right way.”

“Who’s Elmore Pond?” asked the schoolteacher.

“Why, you must have seen him—that great, big, red-faced, good-natured-looking man that comes through here twice a year, buying stock. He lives

over Bigby way, but his wife was a Hillsboro girl, Matey Pelham—an

awfully nice girl she was, too. They never had any children, and Matey

told me the last time she was back for a visit that she and her husband

talked quite often about adopting a little boy. Seems that Mr. Pond has

always wanted a little boy. He’s such a nice man! ‘Twould be a lovely

home for a child.”

“But goodness!” said the teacher. “Nobody would want to adopt such an

awful-looking little ragamuffin as that ‘Lias. He looks so meeching,

too. I guess his stepfather is real mean to him, when he’s been

drinking, and it’s got ‘Lias so he hardly dares hold his head up.”

The clock struck loudly. “Well, hear that!” said Cousin Ann. “Nine

o’clock and the children not in bed! Molly’s most asleep this minute.

Trot along with you, Betsy! Trot along, Molly. And, Betsy, be sure

Molly’s nightgown is buttoned up all the way.”

So it happened that, although the grown-ups were evidently going on to

talk about ‘Lias Brewster, Betsy heard no more of what they said.

She herself went on thinking about ‘Lias while she was undressing and

answering absently little Molly’s chatter. She was thinking about him

even after they had gone to bed, had put the light out, and were lying

snuggled up to each other, back to front, their four legs, crooked at

the same angle, fitting in together neatly like two spoons in a drawer.

She was thinking about him when she woke up, and as soon as she could

get hold of Cousin Ann she poured out a new plan. She had never been

afraid of Cousin Ann since the evening Molly had fallen into the Wolf

Pit and Betsy had seen that pleased smile on Cousin Ann’s firm lips.

“Cousin Ann, couldn’t we girls at school get together and sew—you’d

have to help us some—and make some nice, new clothes for little ‘Lias

Brewster, and fix him up so he’ll look better, and maybe that Mr. Pond

will like him and adopt him?”

Cousin Ann listened attentively and nodded her head. “Yes, I think that

would be a good idea,” she said. “We were thinking last night we ought

to do something for him. If you’ll make the clothes, Mother’ll knit him

some stockings and Father will get him some shoes. Mr. Pond never makes

his spring trip till late May, so we’ll have plenty of time.”

Betsy was full of importance that day at school and at recess time got

the girls together on the rocks and told them all about the plan.

“Cousin Ann says she’ll help us, and we can meet at our house every

Saturday afternoon till we get them done. It’ll be fun! Aunt Abigail

telephoned down to the store right away, and Mr. Wilkins says he’ll give

the cloth if we’ll make it up.”

Betsy spoke very grandly of “making it up,” although she had hardly held

a needle in her life, and when the Saturday afternoon meetings began she

was ashamed to see how much better Ellen and even Eliza could sew than

she. To keep her end up, she was driven to practising her stitches

around the lamp in the evenings, with Aunt Abigail keeping an eye on

her.

Cousin Ann supervised the sewing on Saturday afternoons and taught those

of the little girls whose legs were long enough how to use the sewing

machine. First they made a little pair of trousers out of an old gray

woolen skirt of Aunt Abigail’s. This was for practice, before they cut

into the piece of new blue serge that the storekeeper had sent up.

Cousin Ann showed them how to pin the pattern on the goods and they each

cut out one piece. Those flat, queer-shaped pieces of cloth certainly

did look less like a pair of trousers to Betsy than anything she had

ever seen. Then one of the girls read aloud very slowly the mysterious-sounding directions from the wrapper of the pattern about how to put the

pieces together, Cousin Ann helped here a little, particularly just as

they were about to put the sections together wrong-side-up. Stashie, as

the oldest, did the first basting, putting the notches together

carefully, just as they read the instructions aloud, and there, all of a

sudden, was a rough little sketch of a pair of knee trousers, without

any hem or any waist-band, of course, but just the two-legged,

complicated shape they ought to be! It was like a miracle to Betsy! Then

Cousin Ann helped them sew the seams on the machine, and they all turned

to for the basting of the facings and the finishing. They each made one

buttonhole. It was the first one Betsy had ever made, and when she got

through she was as tired as though she had run all the way to school and

back. Tired, but very proud; although when Cousin Ann inspected that

buttonhole, she covered her face with her handkerchief for a minute, as

though she were going to sneeze, although she didn’t sneeze at all.

It took them two Saturdays to finish up that trial pair of trousers, and

when they showed the result to Aunt Abigail she was delighted. “Well, to

think of that being my old skirt!” she said, putting on her spectacles

to examine the work. She did not laugh, either, when she saw those

buttonholes, but she got up hastily and went into the next room, where

they soon heard her coughing.

Then they made a little blouse out of some new blue gingham. Cousin Ann

happened to have enough left over from a dress she was making. This thin

material was ever so much easier to manage than the gray flannel, and

they had the little garment done in no time, even to the buttons and

buttonholes. When it came to making the buttonholes, Cousin Ann sat

right down with each one and supervised every stitch. You may not be

surprised to know that they were a great improvement over the first

batch.

Then, making a great ceremony of it, they began on the store material,

working twice a week now, because May was slipping along very fast, and

Mr. Pond might be there at any time. They knew pretty well how to go

ahead on this one, after the experience of their first pair, and Cousin

Ann was not much needed, except as adviser in hard places. She sat there

in the room with them, doing some sewing of her own, so quiet that half

the time they forgot she was there. It was great fun, sewing all

together and chattering as they sewed.

A good deal of the time they talked about how splendid it was of them to

be so kind to little ‘Lias. “My! I don’t believe most girls would put

themselves out this way for a dirty little boy!” said Stashie,

complacently.

“No INDEED!” chimed in Betsy. “It’s just like a story, isn’t it—working

and sacrificing for the poor!”

“I guess he’ll thank us all right for sure!” said Ellen. “He’ll never

forget us as long as he lives, I don’t suppose.”

Betsy, her imagination fired by this suggestion, said, “I guess when

he’s grown up he’ll be telling everybody about how, when he was so poor

and ragged, Stashie Monahan and Ellen Peters and Elizabeth Ann …”

“And Eliza!” put in that little girl hastily, very much afraid she would

not be given her due share of the glory.

Cousin Ann sewed, and listened, and said nothing.

Toward the end of May two little blouses, two pairs of trousers, two

pairs of stockings, two sets of underwear (contributed by the teacher),

and the pair of shoes Uncle Henry gave were ready. The little girls

handled the pile of new garments with inexpressible pride, and debated

just which way of bestowing them was sufficiently grand to be worthy the

occasion. Betsy was for taking them to school and giving them to ‘Lias

one by one, so that each child could have her thanks separately. But

Stashie wanted to take them to the house when ‘Lias’s stepfather would