Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (recommended ebook reader TXT) 📕
And yet--did you ever hear of such a case before?--although Elizabeth Ann when she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little jerk and said: "There's nothing in the world the matter with that child. She's as sound as a nut! What sh
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he ought to have done.
Cousin Ann broke into the discussion by asking, in her quiet, firm
voice, “Why do you want ‘Lias to know where the clothes come from?”
They had forgotten again that she was there, and turned around quickly
to stare at her. Nobody could think of any answer to her very queer
question. It had not occurred to any one that there could BE such a
question.
Cousin Ann shifted her ground and asked another: “Why did you make these
clothes, anyhow?”
They stared again, speechless. Why did she ask that? She knew why.
Finally little Molly said, in her honest, baby way, “Why, YOU know why,
Miss Ann! So ‘Lias Brewster will look nice, and Mr. Pond will maybe
adopt him.”
“Well,” said Cousin Ann, “what has that got to do with ‘Lias knowing who
did it?”
“Why, he wouldn’t know who to be grateful to,” cried Betsy.
“Oh,” said Cousin Ann. “Oh, I see. You didn’t do it to help ‘Lias. You
did it to have him grateful to you. I see. Molly is such a little girl,
it’s no wonder she didn’t really take in what you girls were up to.” She
nodded her head wisely, as though now she understood.
But if she did, little Molly certainly did not. She had not the least
idea what everybody was talking about. She looked from one sober,
downcast face to another rather anxiously. What was the matter?
Apparently nothing was really the matter, she decided, for after a
minute’s silence Miss Ann got up with entirely her usual face of
cheerful gravity, and said: “Don’t you think you little girls ought to
top off this last afternoon with a tea-party? There’s a new batch of
cookies, and you can make yourselves some lemonade if you want to.”
They had these refreshments out on the porch, in the sunshine, with
their dolls for guests and a great deal of chatter for sauce. Nobody
said another word about how to give the clothes to ‘Lias, till, just as
the girls were going away, Betsy said, walking along with the two older
ones, “Say, don’t you think it’d be fun to go some evening after dark
and leave the clothes on ‘Lias’s doorstep, and knock and run away quick
before anybody comes to the door?” She spoke in an uncertain voice and
smoothed Deborah’s carved wooden curls.
“Yes, I do!” said Ellen, not looking at Betsy but down at the weeds by
the road. “I think it would be lots of fun!”
Little Molly, playing with Annie and Eliza, did not hear this; but she
was allowed to go with the older girls on the great expedition.
It was a warm, dark evening in late May, with the frogs piping their
sweet, high note, and the first of the fireflies wheeling over the wet
meadows near the tumble-down house where ‘Lias lived. The girls took
turns in carrying the big paper-wrapped bundle, and stole along in the
shadow of the trees, full of excitement, looking over their shoulders at
nothing and pressing their hands over their mouths to keep back the
giggles. There was, of course, no reason on earth why they should
giggle, which is, of course, the very reason why they did. If you’ve
ever been a little girl you know about that.
One window of the small house was dimly lighted, they found, when they
came in sight of it, and they thrilled with excitement and joyful alarm.
Suppose ‘Lias’s dreadful stepfather should come out and yell at them!
They came forward on tiptoe, making a great deal of noise by stepping on
twigs, rustling bushes, crackling gravel under their feet and doing all
the other things that make such a noise at night and never do in the
daytime. But nobody stirred inside the room with the lighted window.
They crept forward and peeped cautiously inside … and stopped giggling.
The dim light coming from a little kerosene lamp with a smoky chimney
fell on a dismal, cluttered room, a bare, greasy wooden table, and two
broken-backed chairs, with little ‘Lias in one of them. He had fallen
asleep with his head on his arms, his pinched, dirty, sad little figure
showing in the light from the lamp. His feet dangled high above the
floor in their broken, muddy shoes. One sleeve was torn to the shoulder.
A piece of dry bread had slipped from his bony little hand and a tin
dipper stood beside him on the bare table. Nobody else was in the room,
nor evidently in the darkened, empty, fireless house.
[Illustration: He had fallen asleep with his head on his arms.]
As long as she lives Betsy will never forget what she saw that night
through that window. Her eyes grew very hot and her hands very cold. Her
heart thumped hard. She reached for little Molly and gave her a great
hug in the darkness. Suppose it were little Molly asleep there, all
alone in the dirty, dismal house, with no supper and nobody to put her
to bed. She found that Ellen, next her, was crying quietly into the
corner of her apron.
Nobody said a word. Stashie, who had the bundle, walked around soberly
to the front door, put it down, and knocked loudly. They all darted away
noiselessly to the road, to the shadow of the trees, and waited until
the door opened. A square of yellow light appeared, with ‘Lias’s figure,
very small, at the bottom of it. They saw him stoop and pick up the
bundle and go back into the house. Then they went quickly and silently
back, separating at the cross-roads with no good-night greetings.
Molly and Betsy began to climb the hill to Putney Farm. It was a very
warm night for May, and little Molly began to puff for breath. “Let’s
sit down on this rock awhile and rest,” she said.
They were halfway up the hill now. From the rock they could see the
lights in the farmhouses scattered along the valley road and on the side
of the mountain opposite them, like big stars fallen from the multitude
above. Betsy lay down on the rock and looked up at the stars. After a
silence little Molly’s chirping voice said, “Oh, I thought you said we
were going to march up to ‘Lias in school and give him his clothes. Did
you forget about that?”
Betsy gave a wriggle of shame as she remembered that plan. “No, we
didn’t forget it,” she said. “We thought this would be a better way.”
“But how’ll ‘Lias know who to thank?” asked Molly.
“That’s no matter,” said Betsy. Yes, it was Elizabeth-Ann-that-was who
said that. And meant it, too. She was not even thinking of what she was
saying. Between her and the stars, thick over her in the black, soft
sky, she saw again that dirty, disordered room and the little boy, all
alone, asleep with a piece of dry bread in his bony little fingers.
She looked hard and long at that picture, all the time seeing the quiet
stars through it. And then she turned over and hid her face on the rock.
She had said her “Now I lay me” every night since she could remember,
but she had never prayed till she lay there with her face on the rock,
saying over and over, “Oh, God, please, please, PLEASE make Mr. Pond
adopt ‘Lias.”
THE NEW CLOTHES FAIL
All the little girls went early to school the next day, eager for the
first glimpse of ‘Lias in his new clothes. They now quite enjoyed the
mystery about who had made them, and were full of agreeable excitement
as the little figure was seen approaching down the road. He wore the
gray trousers and the little blue shirt; the trousers were a little too
long, the shirt a perfect fit. The girls gazed at him with pride as he
came on the playground, walking briskly along in the new shoes, which
were just the right size. He had been wearing all winter a pair of cast-off women’s shoes. From a distance he looked like another child. But as
he came closer … oh! his face! his hair! his hands! his finger-nails!
The little fellow had evidently tried to live up to his beautiful new
raiment, for his hair had been roughly put back from his face, and
around his mouth and nose was a small area of almost clean skin, where
he had made an attempt at washing his face. But he had made practically
no impression on the layers of encrusted dirt, and the little girls
looked at him ruefully. Mr. Pond would certainly never take a fancy to
such a dreadfully grimy child! His new, clean clothes made him look all
the worse, as though dirty on purpose!
The little girls retired to their rock-pile and talked over their bitter
disappointment, Ralph and the other boys absorbed in a game of marbles
near them. ‘Lias had gone proudly into the schoolroom to show himself to
Miss Benton.
It was the day before Decoration Day and a good deal of time was taken
up with practising on the recitations they were going to give at the
Decoration Day exercises in the village. Several of the children from
each school in the township were to speak pieces in the Town Hall. Betsy
was to recite Barbara Frietchie, her first love in that school, but she
droned it over with none of her usual pleasure, her eyes on little
‘Lias’s smiling face, so unconscious of its dinginess.
At noon time the boys disappeared down toward the swimming-hole. They
often took a swim at noon and nobody thought anything about it on that
day. The little girls ate their lunch on their rock, mourning over the
failure of their plans, and scheming ways to meet the new obstacle.
Stashie suggested, “Couldn’t your Aunt Abigail invite him up to your
house for supper and then give him a bath afterward?” But Betsy,
although she had never heard of treating a supper-guest in this way, was
sure that it was not possible. She shook her head sadly, her eyes on the
far-off gleam of white where the boys jumped up and down in their
swimming-hole. That was not a good name for it, because there was only
one part of it deep enough to swim in. Mostly it was a shallow bay in an
arm of the river, where the water was only up to a little boy’s knees
and where there was almost no current. The sun beating down on it made
it quite warm, and even the first-graders’ mothers allowed them to go
in. They only jumped up and down and squealed and splashed each other,
but they enjoyed that quite as much as Frank and Harry, the two seventh-graders, enjoyed their swooping dives from the spring-board over the
pool. They were late in getting back from the river that day and Miss
Benton had to ring her bell hard in that direction before they came
trooping up and clattered into the schoolroom, where the girls already
sat, their eyes lowered virtuously to their books, with a prim air of
self-righteousness. THEY were never late!
Betsy was reciting her arithmetic. She was getting on famously with
that. Weeks ago, as soon as Miss Benton had seen the confusion of the
little girl’s mind, the two had settled down to a serious struggle with
that subject. Miss Benton had had Betsy recite all by herself, so she
wouldn’t be flurried by the others; and to begin with had gone back,
back,
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