Betty Wales

“ Betty Wales, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her trim little figure enveloped in one of her famous kitchen aprons, stood on a chair in the china closet of Morton Hall, covering the top shelves neatly with sheets of white paper. One of the three richest men in New York, very damp and red in the face from his exertions, was screwing in hooks for pots and pans in the pantry next door. A rising young architect was helping the pretty wife of a distinguished psychology professor wash dishes, ready to put on Betty’s carefully spread papers. ”

“ Miss Raymond and Miss Ferris considered a moment, and then held a brief consultation.
"We both decide in favor of Betty Wales," announced Miss Ferris. "She looks about nine and none of the rest of you are under twelve."
"There! What did I tell you!" shrieked Betty gaily, her curls bobbing, her sash ends flying.
"I protest," called Katherine Kittredge. "Betty doesn't look over twelve any of the time, and the rest of us look twenty. We've taken off eight years and she's only dropped five. 'Tain't fair!" and Katherine burst into a beautiful "little girl" boohoo. ”

“ Mary faced the challenger coldly. “The real business of the meeting,” she announced, “is the rescue of Betty Wales from the clutches of her too-numerous jobs, charities, helpful ideas, and noble ambitions, including that interesting but heavily conditioned freshman, Montana Marie O’Toole.”
“But I thought Georgia had been regularly ‘elected’ to look out for Betty,” suggested Christy Mason.
“Well, Georgia is only one,” explained [86] Helen Chase Adams seriously, “and being a prominent senior keeps her fairly busy, I imagine. And then Betty doesn’t want to be rescued. ”

“ Betty Wales was not thinking of the Tally-ho Catering Department (which was deciding to be the howling success that Babbie had predicted) , nor of the Student’s Aid Secretaryship, nor of Montana Marie O’Toole, among whose faults was certainly not to be ranked a lack of decision.
“Oh, goodness me!” said Betty Wales at last to the open fire in her cheerful sitting-room [182] at Morton Hall. “A girl ought to know her own mind. I’m old enough to know what I want. I’m grown up. But I don’t feel a bit grown up. I just hate flirts. It’s perfectly dreadful to keep a nice man on the string. ”

“ She found more “queer” things to like at Harding every day, and she considered Betty Wales one of the queerest and one of the nicest.
Eleanor pleased Betty by offering no objection to the change of plan. “Only you needn’t think that you can get rid of me as easily as all this,” she said. “I shall camp down in the registrar’s office until she says that ‘under the circumstances,’ which is her pet phrase, she will let me change my application to the Belden. By the way, Betty, Jean Eastman wants to see you after chapel 367 to-morrow. She said she’d be in number five.” ”

“ From her appointed station under the pine-tree Katherine heard the grinding of the boat on the gravel, the rattle of oars thrown down on the wharf, and then a low murmur of conversation that did not start up the hill toward her, as she had expected.
“Innocents!” sighed Katherine. “They’re actually stopping to talk it out down there in the wet. I’m glad they’ve made it up, and I’d do anything in reason for Betty Wales, but I certainly am sleepy,” and she yawned so loud that a blue jay that was roosting in the tree above her head fluttered up to a higher branch, screaming angrily. ”

“ Meanwhile our only hope is that she’ll get sick of her play and come to our rescue, and do you know, Betty Wales, I shall be most desperately disappointed if she does.”
Betty laughed. “I suppose she oughtn’t to waste her time on fussy little things like gift-shop specialties if she can really do big things like plays for Agatha Dwight. But she is so splendid at everything.”
“And the moral of that is,” said Mary, “be splendid at everything and you’ll be wanted, no matter how provoking you are at times. ”

“ I shall love having the tea-shops. It makes me feel less as if this was the end of Betty Wales—less as if I’d been blown out to make room for Mrs. Jim.” Betty made a funny little face at Jim, who retorted with, “Haven’t forgotten that train, have you, Mrs. Jim?”
[355] When the carriage came for them, the elves and wood fairies surrounded it and pelted the bridal couple with armfuls of daisies instead of rice and old shoes. So it was through a rain of daisies that Betty caught her last glimpse of the Merry Hearts, who stood in a little group by themselves waving her off. ”

“ Rachel Morrison laughingly finished Mary’s sentence for her.
And sure enough, Betty Wales, looking very young, very pretty, also very care-free and happy for a person in dire need of rescue, was shutting the door with one hand, giving Emily Davis a handful of letters and memoranda with the other, and telling Nora about a special dinner order for that evening as she [88] slipped off her ulster. Then she made a bee-line for Jack o’ Hearts’ stall and the Merry Hearts. ”

“ Betty Wales was going home for Christmas—a “ploshkin” income puts life on such a comfortable financial basis! And between Christmas and New Year’s Babe was going to be married. That meant coming half-way back to Harding for the wedding; and it made easier Betty’s sad decision that since the stocking factory was willing to postpone its Christmas party till New Year’s, and since most of the Morton Hall girls would spend their vacations in town, and certainly be very forlorn indeed unless somebody looked after them, it was the duty of Miss B. Wales, Secretary, to come back early and lend a hand. ”

“ But the pow-wow was a rather spiritless affair.
“You’re thinking of something else, Betty Wales,” declared the Smallest Sister accusingly, right in the midst of the story of the Reckless Ritherum, who is second cousin to the Ploshkin and has a very nice tale of its own. “If you’re going to look way off over my head and think of something else, I guess I’d rather go up-stairs and make beds all by my lonesome.”
“I’m sorry, dearie,” Betty apologized humbly, “but you see I feel just like a reckless [Pg 21] ritherum myself this morning—going out to play with three terrible giants.” ”

“ Who could resist trying to be a ghost, Miss Wales, with that secret passage all fixed up as if on purpose? I’ve felt awfully about Shirley——”
“And yet you did it again,” said Betty sternly, “to Dorothy, who might have been just as badly frightened.”
Frisky wept afresh. “I know it. She made me cross, and I didn’t care. Sometimes I don’t care what happens, Miss Wales, and other days I love everybody, even Miss Dick and my stepmother. The worst thing is that nobody trusts me. I meant to show them that I could be trusted to get along all right alone. ”

“ So ended Betty’s first day at college. Nan finished unpacking, and then sat for a long time by the window. Betty loved Nan, but Nan in return worshiped Betty. They might call her the clever Miss Wales if they liked; she would gladly have given all her vaunted brains for the fascinating little ways that made Betty friends so quickly and for the power to take life in Betty’s free-and-easy fashion. “Oh, I hope she’ll like it!” she thought. “I hope she’ll be popular with the girls. I don’t want her to have to work so hard for all she gets. ”

“ Madeline broke the pause disconsolately. “Just the same, it is the end of Betty Wales.”
“Yes,” agreed Eleanor chokingly.
“Certainly it is,” put in Mary Brooks decisively “And high time, in my opinion. Do you want her to wear herself out doing things for other people, with nobody whose [356] special business it is to do things for her? Do you want her to miss any of the good things life has for her? I say, hurrah for Montana Marie O’Toole, who helped Betty decide on Jim.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Hinsdale,” broke in Mr. Morton excitedly. ”

“ Josephine, who was the father of the large and irrepressible Carmichael family, had just finished declaiming her longest speech with praiseworthy regard for its meaning, when somebody called out, “Ermengarde St. John isn’t here yet.”
Nita sank down in Miss Amelia Minchen’s armchair with a little moan of despair. “Somebody go and get her,” she said. “Betty Wales, you’d better go. You can dress people fastest.” ”

“ But anyway the faculty wouldn’t give me regular tutoring. I look too well-to-do. Ah! how deceitful are appearances!” sighed Mary, opening her pocketbook, where five copper pennies rattled about forlornly.
But the very next day she dashed into Betty’s room proclaiming loudly, “I have an idea, and I want you to help me, Betty Wales. You can draw and I’ll cut them out and drum up customers, and I guess I can write the verses. We ought to make our ad. ”

“ It would make too much confusion to move so many people. Here comes T. now. I shall be almost opposite Eleanor and Katherine, and I don’t mind one bit.”359
So it happened that Betty Wales ate her class supper between Clara Madison and the fat Miss Austin, and enjoyed it as thoroughly as if she had been where she belonged, between Babbie and Roberta. ”

“ And I’ve let them suppose, Miss Wales,—I’ve pretty nearly said to those other girls that I cut dances with,—that some junior gave up her last dance and her man to me. Do you think that was perfectly horrid of me, Miss Wales?”
“Of course I think it’s always better to tell things just as they are.” Betty tried to be tactful and truthful at once.
Marie nodded vigorous agreement. “I should say it is. You get all tangled up and ashamed of yourself when you try to fix up a good story. ”

“ You’re a good hard worker, Helen. Isn’t it queer,” she went on, “we’re not a bit alike, but this game is making us feel the same way. I wonder if the others feel so too. Perhaps it’s one reason why they have this game–to wake us all up and make us want to do something worth while.”
“Betty Wales,” called Christy Mason from the floor below. Betty leaned over the railing. “Don’t forget that you’re coming to dinner to-night. We’re going to serenade the team. They’ll be dining at the Belden with Miss Andrews.” ”

“ But my freshman is all right, anyway.”
“I suppose you think the Tally-ho and Morton Hall and the Student’s Aid and small Dorothy can get along without you,” continued Madeline, who was going to miss Betty dreadfully, and was teasing her to avoid showing her real feelings.
“Of course!” Nothing could daunt Betty Wales to-night. “Anything can get along without anybody—except—Jim and me. Besides, [340] I shall have time to see to all those things before I’m—married. I don’t know when Jim is going to Germany. ”

“ But Betty only laughed. “Who wants so particularly to be back on Easy Street?” she demanded. “It’s fun to see what you can do when you try. I like being part of Betty Wales and Co. I like being the cook. I shall like helping in any other ways that turn up.” Betty smiled a little far-away smile. “Lots of queer things have turned up this year. I certainly do wonder what I shall get into next.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
On page 164, pigeon-holes has been changed to pigeonholes. ”

“ Lights—let me see—oh, yes, carriage lamps for lights. An open fire—we simply must have that—it’s the one thing lacking. Why, Betty Wales, there’s nothing like it anywhere! People will go crazy over it, and we shall make our everlasting fortunes. See, this little room back here—it’s a harness-room, I suppose—is just the thing for the kitchen. Why, it’s perfect, and the rent will be a mere song. Come and tell Babbie this minute.
“And to think that it was Betty and not I [Pg 86] who had the inspiration!” Madeline sighed, as she ended her enthusiastic recital to Babbie and Mary. ”

“ Anybody could do anything that I’ve ever done,—if they’d only try,” ended Betty Wales, with a fine disregard for antecedents and a serene lack of appreciation of the rarity of people who try—and who keep on trying to the bitter end.
If Dorothy didn’t go back to Miss Dick’s there would be two extra ones at home; that would put boarding, with five in the family, out of the question, and rents in town were frightfully expensive. It did seem as if a person who had a good salary waiting for her in Harding would better “go back on the job,” as Will would have put it. ”

“ Then she forgot everything but the perfectly splendid time she was having right now, in the old care-free Betty Wales fashion. She counted the minutes jealously, and sighed all to herself when the last toast was over—K’s comical eulogy of “Our Working Women.”
But with the end of the supper the night’s fun was only well started. Up the stairs to the loft, bearing the ploshkins solemnly above their heads, climbed 19—, to sing to the little tenth year table; then out to the Peter Pan Annex to salute the fifteeners and pelt them with green carnations. The third year reunion was up in the gym ”

“ Will Wales.”
“Gracious, what a mess!” exclaimed Betty, and looked very sober for at least three minutes. Then she smiled again. “I’m glad that the cottage burned down now, if it had to burn at all. Lakeside is so dreadfully sandy, and now that we haven’t any house at all, I can [344] just as well be married in the very place that I’ve always wanted to go to a wedding in. I can stay here quietly with Dorothy, except when I rush off to Babbie’s, and Nan can come up from Boston a lot easier than she can go to Cleveland, and Mother and Father and Will can come here as well as not. ”

“ Our commencement is pretty enough to pay our families for coming even if the girls they are particularly interested in don’t have parts. Being on a committee isn’t a part anyway.”
“Girls who are never on them think it is,” said Helen Adams.
There was an ominous silence.
At the end of it Babbie slipped out of the hammock and sat down beside Betty on the grass. “It’s no use at all fighting you, Betty Wales,” she declared amiably. “You always twist the things we don’t want to do around until they seem simple and easy and no more than decent. ”