Sarah Orne Jewett - Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls

The old captain was friendly and smiling, and Mary and her mother said "Thank you," a good many times, but Mrs. Beck took half the pleasure away by a sigh and lament that her girl couldn't make any return.

"It's the best return to be so glad to see each other, Becky!" said Betty Leicester, suddenly turning to her friend and blushing a good deal as they kissed one another, while the old captain gave a satisfied humph and turned to his newspaper again.

Mrs. Beck was really much pleased, and yet was overwhelmed with a suspicion that Betty thought her ungrateful. She was sorry that if there were going to be a handkerchief it had not been one with a black border, but after all this was a pretty one and very fine; it would be just right for Mary by and by.

The old cat seemed to know the young visitor, and came presently purring very loud and rubbing against Betty's gown, and was promptly lifted into her lap for a little patting and cuddling before she must run back again to the aunts. This cat had been known to Betty as a young kitten, and she and Becky had sometimes dressed her with a neat white ruffle about her neck to which they added a doll's dress. She was one of the limp obliging kittens which make such capital playmates, and the two girls laughed a great deal now as they reminded each other of certain frolics that had taken place. Once Mrs. Beck had entertained the Maternal Meeting in her staid best parlor, and the Busy B's, as the captain sometimes called them, had dressed the kitten and encouraged her to enter the room at a most serious moment in the proceedings. Even Mrs. Beck laughed about it now, though she was very angry at the time. Her heart seemed to warm more and more, and by the time our friend had gone she was in really good spirits. Becky must keep the cake of soap in her upper drawer, she said; nothing gave such a nice clean smell to things. It seemed to her it was a strange present, but it was nice to have it, and all the things were pretty; it wasn't likely that any of them were very expensive.

"Oh mother!" pleaded Becky affectionately; "and then, just think! you said last night perhaps she hadn't brought me anything, and it had been out of sight out of mind with her!" Mary was truly fond of her friend, but she could not help looking at life sometimes from her mother's carping point of view. It was good for her to be so pleased and happy as she was that evening, and she looked at her new treasures again and prudently counted the seventeen little chocolates in their gay papers twice over before she treated herself to any. She could keep their little cases even after the chocolates were gone.

Mrs. Beck mended and sewed on buttons long after the captain and Mary had gone to bed. She could not help feeling happier for Betty Leicester's coming. She knew that she had been a little grumpy to the child; but Betty had luckily not been discomforted by it, and had even thought, as she ran across the street in the dark evening and up the long front walk, that Becky's mother was not half so disapproving as she used to be.

There was a gnarled old pear-tree of great age and size that grew near Betty Leicester's east window. By leaning out a little she could touch the nearest bough. Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary said that it was a most beautiful thing to see it in bloom in the spring; and the family cats were fond of climbing up and leaping across to the window-sill, while there were usually some birds perching in it when the coast was clear of pussies.

One day Betty was looking over from Mary Beck's and saw that the east window and the pear-tree branch were in plain sight; so the two girls invented a system of signals: one white handkerchief meant come over , and two meant no , but a single one in answer was for yes . A yellow handkerchief on the bough proposed a walk; and so the code went on, and was found capable of imparting much secret information. Sometimes the exchange of these signals took a far longer time than it did to run across from house to house, and at any rate in the first fortnight Mary and Betty spent the greater part of their waking hours together. Still the signal service, as they proudly called it, was of great use.

One morning, when Mary had been summoned, Betty came rushing to meet her.

"Aunt Barbara is going to let me have a tea-party. What do you think of that?" she cried.

Mary Beck looked pleased, and then a doubting look crept over her face.

"I don't know any of the boys and girls very well except you," Betty explained, "and Aunt Barbara likes the idea of having them come. Aunt Mary thinks that she can't come down, for the excitement would be too much for her, but I am going to tease her again as soon as I have time. It is to be a summer-house tea at six o'clock; it is lovely in the garden then. Just as soon as I have helped Serena a little longer, you and I will go to invite everybody. Serena is letting me beat eggs."

It was a great astonishment that Betty should take the serious occasion so lightly. Mary Beck would have planned it at least a week beforehand, and have worried and worked and been in despair; but here was Betty as gay as possible, and as for Aunt Barbara and Serena and Letty, they were gay too. It was entirely mysterious.

"I have sent word by Jonathan to the Picknell girls; he had an errand on that road. They looked so old and scared in church last Sunday that I kept thinking that they ought to have a good time. They don't come in to the village much, do they?" inquired Betty with great interest.

"Hardly ever, except Sundays," answered Mary Beck. "They turn red if you only look at them, but they are always talking together when they go by. One of them can draw beautifully. Oh, of course I go to school with them, but I don't know them very well."

"I hope they'll come, don't you?" said Betty, whisking away at the eggs. "I don't know when I've ever been where I could have a little party. I can have two or three girls to luncheon or tea almost any time, especially in London, but that's different. Who else now, Becky? Let's see if we choose the same ones."

"Mary and Julia Picknell, and Mary and Ellen Grant, and Lizzie French, and George Max, and Frank Crane, and my cousin Jim Beck,—Dan's too little. They would be eight, and you and I make ten—oh, that's too many!"

"Dear me, no!" said Betty lightly. "I thought of the Fosters, too"—

"We don't have much to do with the Fosters," said Mary Beck. "I don't see why that Nelly Foster started up and came to see you. I never go inside her house now. Everybody despises her father"—

"I think that Nelly is a dear-looking girl," insisted Betty. "I like her ever so much."

"They acted so stuck-up after Mr. Foster was put in jail," Mary went on. "People pitied them at first and were carrying about a subscription-paper, but Mrs. Foster wouldn't take anything, and said that they were going to support themselves. People don't like Mrs. Foster very well."

"Aunt Barbara respects her very much. She says that few women would show the courage she has shown. Perhaps she hasn't a nice way of speaking, but Aunt Barbara said that I must ask Harry and Nelly, when we were talking about to-night." Betty could not help a tone of triumph; she and Becky had fought a little about the Fosters before this.

"Harry is just like a wild Indian," said Mary Beck; "he goes fishing and trapping almost all the time. He won't know what to do at a party. I believe he makes ever so much money with his fish, and pays bills with it." Becky relented a little now. "Oh, dear, I haven't anything nice enough to wear," she added suddenly. "We never have parties in Tideshead, except at the vestry in the winter; and they're so poky."

"Oh, wear anything; it's going to be hot, that's all," said industrious Betty, in her business-like checked apron; and it now first dawned upon Becky's honest mind that it was not worth while to make one's self utterly miserable about one's clothes.