Understood Betsy Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  ELIZABETH ANN FAILS IN AN EXAMINATION

  I wonder if you can guess the name of a little girl who, about a monthafter this, was walking along through the melting snow in the woods witha big black dog running circles around her. Yes, all alone in the woodswith a terrible great dog beside her, and yet not a bit afraid. Youdon't suppose it could be Elizabeth Ann? Well, whoever she was, she hadsomething on her mind, for she walked more and more slowly and had onlya very absent-minded pat for the dog's head when he thrust it up for acaress. When the wood road led into a clearing in which there was arough little house of slabs, the child stopped altogether, and, lookingdown, began nervously to draw lines in the snow with her overshoe.

  You see, something perfectly dreadful had happened in school that day.The Superintendent, the all-important, seldom-seen Superintendent, cameto visit the school and the children were given some examinations so hecould see how they were getting on.

  Now, you know what an examination did to Elizabeth Ann. Or haven't Itold you yet?

  Well, if I haven't, it's because words fail me. If there is anythinghorrid that an examination DIDn't do to Elizabeth Ann, I have yet tohear of it. It began years ago, before ever she went to school, when sheheard Aunt Frances talking about how SHE had dreaded examinations whenshe was a child, and how they dried up her mouth and made her ears ringand her head ache and her knees get all weak and her mind a perfectblank, so that she didn't know what two and two made. Of courseElizabeth Ann didn't feel ALL those things right off at her firstexamination, but by the time she had had several and had rushed to tellAunt Frances about how awful they were and the two of them hadsympathized with one another and compared symptoms and then wept abouther resulting low marks, why, she not only had all the symptoms AuntFrances had ever had, but a good many more of her own invention.

  Well, she had had them all and had them hard this afternoon, when theSuperintendent was there. Her mouth had gone dry and her knees hadshaken and her elbows had felt as though they had no more bones in themthan so much jelly, and her eyes had smarted, and oh, what answers shehad made! That dreadful tight panic had clutched at her throat wheneverthe Superintendent had looked at her, and she had disgraced herself tentimes over. She went hot and cold to think of it, and felt quite sickwith hurt vanity. She who did so well every day and was so much lookedup to by her classmates, what MUST they be thinking of her! To tell thetruth, she had been crying as she walked along through the woods,because she was so sorry for herself. Her eyes were all red still, andher throat sore from the big lump in it.

  And now she would live it all over again as she told the Putney cousins.For of course they must be told. She had always told Aunt Franceseverything that happened in school. It happened that Aunt Abigail hadbeen taking a nap when she got home from school, and so she had come outto the sap-house, where Cousin Ann and Uncle Henry were making syrup, tohave it over with as soon as possible. She went up to the little slabhouse now, dragging her feet and hanging her head, and opened the door.

  Cousin Ann, in a very short old skirt and a man's coat and high rubberboots, was just poking some more wood into the big fire which blazedfuriously under the broad, flat pan where the sap was boiling. Therough, brown hut was filled with white steam and that sweetest of allodors, hot maple syrup. Cousin Ann turned her head, her face very redwith the heat of the fire, and nodded at the child.

  "Hello, Betsy, you're just in time. I've saved out a cupful of hot syrupfor you, all ready to wax."

  Betsy hardly heard this, although she had been wild about waxed sugar onsnow ever since her very first taste of it. "Cousin Ann," she saidunhappily, "the Superintendent visited our school this afternoon."

  "Did he!" said Cousin Ann, dipping a thermometer into the boiling syrup.

  "Yes, and we had EXAMINATIONS!" said Betsy.

  "Did you?" said Cousin Ann, holding the thermometer up to the light andlooking at it.

  "And you know how perfectly awful examinations make you feel," saidBetsy, very near to tears again.

  "Why, no," said Cousin Ann, sorting over syrup tins. "They never made mefeel awful. I thought they were sort of fun."

  "FUN!" cried Betsy, indignantly, staring through the beginnings of hertears.

  "Why, yes. Like taking a dare, don't you know. Somebody stumps you tojump off the hitching-post, and you do it to show 'em. I always used tothink examinations were like that. Somebody stumps you to spell'pneumonia,' and you do it to show 'em. Here's your cup of syrup. You'dbetter go right out and wax it while it's hot."

  Elizabeth Ann automatically took the cup in her hand, but she did notlook at it. "But supposing you get so scared you can't spell 'pneumonia'or anything else!" she said feelingly. "That's what happened to me. Youknow how your mouth gets all dry and your knees ..." She stopped. CousinAnn had said she did NOT know all about those things. "Well, anyhow, Igot so scared I could hardly STAND up! And I made the most awfulmistakes--things I know just as WELL! I spelled 'doubt' without any band 'separate' with an e, and I said Iowa was bounded on the north byWisconsin, and I ..."

  "Oh, well," said Cousin Ann, "it doesn't matter if you really know theright answers, does it? That's the important thing."

  This was an idea which had never in all her life entered Betsy's brainand she did not take it in at all now. She only shook her head miserablyand went on in a doleful tone. "And I said 13 and 8 are 22! and I wroteMarch without any capital M, and I ..."

  "Look here, Betsy, do you WANT to tell me all this?" Cousin Ann spoke inthe quick, ringing voice she had once in a while which made everybody,from old Shep up, open his eyes and get his wits about him. Betsygathered hers and thought hard; and she came to an unexpectedconclusion. No, she didn't really want to tell Cousin Ann all about it.Why was she doing it? Because she thought that was the thing to do."Because if you don't really want to," went on Cousin Ann, "I don't seethat it's doing anybody any good. I guess Hemlock Mountain will standright there just the same even if you did forget to put a b in 'doubt.'And your syrup will be too cool to wax right if you don't take it outpretty soon."

  She turned back to stoke the fire, and Elizabeth Ann, in a daze, foundherself walking out of the door. It fell shut after her, and there shewas under the clear, pale-blue sky, with the sun just hovering over therim of Hemlock Mountain. She looked up at the big mountains, all blueand silver with shadows and snow, and wondered what in the world CousinAnn had meant. Of course Hemlock Mountain would stand there just thesame. But what of it? What did that have to do with her arithmetic, withanything? She had failed in her examination, hadn't she?

  She found a clean white snow-bank under a pine-tree, and, setting hercup of syrup down in a safe place, began to pat the snow down hard tomake the right bed for the waxing of the syrup. The sun, very hot forthat late March day, brought out strongly the tarry perfume of the bigpine-tree. Near her the sap dripped musically into a bucket, alreadyhalf full, hung on a maple-tree. A blue-jay rushed suddenly through theupper branches of the wood, his screaming and chattering voice soundinglike noisy children at play.

  Elizabeth Ann took up her cup and poured some of the thick, hot syrupout on the hard snow, making loops and curves as she poured. Itstiffened and hardened at once, and she lifted up a great coil of it,threw her head back, and let it drop into her mouth. Concentratedsweetness of summer days was in that mouthful, part of it still hot andaromatic, part of it icy and wet with melting snow. She crunched it alltogether with her strong, child's teeth into a delicious, big lump andsucked on it dreamily, her eyes on the rim of Hemlock Mountain, highabove her there, the snow on it bright golden in the sunlight. UncleHenry had promised to take her up to the top as soon as the snow wentoff. She wondered what the top of a mountain would be like. Uncle Henryhad said the main thing was that you could see so much of the world atonce. He said it was too queer the way your own house and big barn andgreat fields looked like little toy things that weren't of any account.It was because you could see so much more than just the....

>   She heard an imploring whine, and a cold nose was thrust into her hand!Why, there was old Shep begging for his share of waxed sugar. He lovedit, though it did stick to his teeth so! She poured out another lot andgave half of it to Shep. It immediately stuck his jaws together tight,and he began pawing at his mouth and shaking his head till Betsy had tolaugh. Then he managed to pull his jaws apart and chewed loudly andvisibly, tossing his head, opening his mouth wide till Betsy could seethe sticky, brown candy draped in melting festoons all over his bigwhite teeth and red gullet. Then with a gulp he had swallowed it alldown and was whining for more, striking softly at the little girl'sskirt with his forepaw. "Oh, you eat it too fast!" cried Betsy, but sheshared her next lot with him too. The sun had gone down over HemlockMountain by this time, and the big slope above her was all deep blueshadow. The mountain looked much higher now as the dusk began to fall,and loomed up bigger and bigger as though it reached to the sky. It wasno wonder houses looked small from its top. Betsy ate the last of hersugar, looking up at the quiet giant there, towering grandly above her.There was no lump in her throat now. And, although she still thought shedid not know what in the world Cousin Ann meant by saying that aboutHemlock Mountain and her examination, it's my opinion that she had madea very good beginning of an understanding.

  She was just picking up her cup to take it back to the sap-house whenShep growled a little and stood with his ears and tail up, looking downthe road. Something was coming down that road in the blue, cleartwilight, something that was making a very queer noise. It soundedalmost like somebody crying. It WAS somebody crying! It was a childcrying. It was a little, little girl. ... Betsy could see hernow ... stumbling along and crying as though her heart would break. Why,it was little Molly, her own particular charge at school, whose readinglesson she heard every day. Betsy and Shep ran to meet her. "What's thematter, Molly? What's the matter?" Betsy knelt down and put her armsaround the weeping child. "Did you fall down? Did you hurt you? What areyou doing 'way off here? Did you lose your way?"

  "I don't want to go away! I don't want to go away!" said Molly over andover, clinging tightly to Betsy. It was a long time before Betsy couldquiet her enough to find out what had happened. Then she made outbetween Molly's sobs that her mother had been taken suddenly sick andhad to go away to a hospital, and that left nobody at home to take careof Molly, and she was to be sent away to some strange relatives in thecity who didn't want her at all and who said so right out....

  Oh, Elizabeth Ann knew all about that! and her heart swelled big withsympathy. For a moment she stood again out on the sidewalk in front ofthe Lathrop house with old Mrs. Lathrop's ungracious white head bobbingfrom a window, and knew again that ghastly feeling of being unwanted.Oh, she knew why little Molly was crying! And she shut her handstogether hard and made up her mind that she WOULD help her out!

  "What's the matter, Molly? What's the matter?"]

  Do you know what she did, right off, without thinking about it? Shedidn't go and look up Aunt Abigail. She didn't wait till Uncle Henrycame back from his round of emptying sap buckets into the big tub on hissled. As fast as her feet could carry her she flew back to Cousin Ann inthe sap-house. I can't tell you (except again that Cousin Ann was CousinAnn) why it was that Betsy ran so fast to her and was so sure thateverything would be all right as soon as Cousin Ann knew about it; butwhatever the reason was it was a good one, for, though Cousin Ann didnot stop to kiss Molly or even to look at her more than one sharp firstglance, she said after a moment's pause, during which she filled a syrupcan and screwed the cover down very tight: "Well, if her folks will lether stay, how would you like to have Molly come and stay with us tillher mother gets back from the hospital? Now you've got a room of yourown, I guess if you wanted to you could have her sleep with you."

  "Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly!" shouted Betsy, jumping up and down, and thenhugging the little girl with all her might. "Oh, it will be like havinga little sister!"

  Cousin Ann sounded a dry, warning note: "Don't be too sure her folkswill let her. We don't know about them yet."

  Betsy ran to her, and caught her hand, looking up at her with shiningeyes. "Cousin Ann, if YOU go to see them and ask them, they will!"

  This made even Cousin Ann give a little abashed smile of pleasure,although she made her face grave again at once and said: "You'd bettergo along back to the house now, Betsy. It's time for you to help Motherwith the supper."

  The two children trotted back along the darkening wood road, Sheprunning before them, little Molly clinging fast to the older child'shand. "Aren't you ever afraid, Betsy, in the woods this way?" she askedadmiringly, looking about her with timid eyes.

  "Oh, no!" said Betsy, protectingly; "there's nothing to be afraid of,except getting off on the wrong fork of the road, near the Wolf Pit."

  "Oh, OW!" said Molly, cringing. "What's the Wolf Pit? What an awfulname!"

  Betsy laughed. She tried to make her laugh sound brave like CousinAnn's, which always seemed so scornful of being afraid. As a matter offact, she was beginning to fear that they HAD made the wrong turn, andshe was not quite sure that she could find the way home. But she putthis out of her mind and walked along very fast, peering ahead into thedusk. "Oh, it hasn't anything to do with wolves," she said in answer toMolly's question; "anyhow, not now. It's just a big, deep hole in theground where a brook had dug out a cave. ... Uncle Henry told me allabout it when he showed it to me ... and then part of the roof caved in;sometimes there's ice in the corner of the covered part all the summer,Aunt Abigail says."

  "Why do you call it the Wolf Pit?" asked Molly, walking very close toBetsy and holding very tightly to her hand.

  "Oh, long, ever so long ago, when the first settlers came up here, theyheard a wolf howling all night, and when it didn't stop in the morning,they came up here on the mountain and found a wolf had fallen in andcouldn't get out."

  "My! I hope they killed him!" said Molly.

  "Oh, gracious! that was more than a hundred years ago," said Betsy. Shewas not thinking of what she was saying. She was thinking that if theyWERE on the right road they ought to be home by this time. She wasthinking that the right road ran down hill to the house all the way, andthat this certainly seemed to be going up a little. She was wonderingwhat had become of Shep. "Stand here just a minute, Molly," she said. "Iwant ... I just want to go ahead a little bit and see ... and see ..." Shedarted on around a curve of the road and stood still, her heart sinking.The road turned there and led straight up the mountain!

  For just a moment the little girl felt a wild impulse to burst out in ashriek for Aunt Frances, and to run crazily away, anywhere so long asshe was running. But the thought of Molly standing back there,trustfully waiting to be taken care of, shut Betsy's lips together hardbefore her scream of fright got out. She stood still, thinking. Now shemustn't get frightened. All they had to do was to walk back along theroad till they came to the fork and then make the right turn. But whatif they didn't get back to the turn till it was so dark they couldn'tsee it...? Well, she mustn't think of that. She ran back, calling, "Comeon, Molly," in a tone she tried to make as firm as Cousin Ann's. "Iguess we have made the wrong turn after all. We'd better ..."

  But there was no Molly there. In the brief moment Betsy had stoodthinking, Molly had disappeared. The long, shadowy wood road held not atrace of her.

  Then Betsy WAS frightened and then she DID begin to scream, at the topof her voice, "Molly! Molly!" She was beside herself with terror, andstarted back hastily to hear Molly's voice, very faint, apparentlycoming from the ground under her feet.

  "Ow! Ow! Betsy! Get me out! Get me out!"

  "Where ARE you?" shrieked Betsy.

  "I don't know!" came Molly's sobbing voice. "I just moved the leastlittle bit out of the road, and slipped on the ice and began to slideand I couldn't stop myself and I fell down into a deep hole!"

  Betsy's head felt as though her hair were standing up straight on endwith horror. Molly must have fallen down into the Wolf Pit! Yes, theywere quite near
it. She remembered now that big white-birch tree stoodright at the place where the brook tumbled over the edge and fell intoit. Although she was dreadfully afraid of falling in herself, she wentcautiously over to this tree, feeling her way with her foot to make sureshe did not slip, and peered down into the cavernous gloom below. Yes,there was Molly's little face, just a white speck. The child was crying,sobbing, and holding up her arms to Betsy.

  "Are you hurt, Molly?"

  "No. I fell into a big snow-bank, but I'm all wet and frozen and I wantto get out! I want to get out!"

  Betsy held on to the birch-tree. Her head whirled. What SHOULD she do!"Look here, Molly," she called down, "I'm going to run back along to theright road and back to the house and get Uncle Henry. He'll come with arope and get you out!"

  At this Molly's crying rose to a frantic scream. "Oh, Betsy, don't leaveme here alone! Don't! Don't! The wolves will get me! Betsy, DON'T leaveme alone!" The child was wild with terror.

  "But I CAN'T get you out myself!" screamed back Betsy, crying herself.Her teeth were chattering with the cold.

  "Don't go! Don't go!" came up from the darkness of the pit in a piteoushowl. Betsy made a great effort and stopped crying. She sat down on astone and tried to think. And this is what came into her mind as aguide: "What would Cousin Ann do if she were here? She wouldn't cry. Shewould THINK of something."

  Betsy looked around her desperately. The first thing she saw was the biglimb of a pine-tree, broken off by the wind, which half lay and halfslantingly stood up against a tree a little distance above the mouth ofthe pit. It had been there so long that the needles had all dried andfallen off, and the skeleton of the branch with the broken stubs lookedlike ... yes, it looked like a ladder! THAT was what Cousin Ann would havedone!

  "Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Molly!" she called wildly down the pit,warm all over in excitement. "Now listen. You go off there in a corner,where the ground makes a sort of roof. I'm going to throw down somethingyou can climb up on, maybe."

  "Ow! Ow, it'll hit me!" cried poor little Molly, more and morefrightened. But she scrambled off under her shelter obediently, whileBetsy struggled with the branch. It was so firmly imbedded in the snowthat at first she could not budge it at all. But after she cleared thataway and pried hard with the stick she was using as a lever she felt itgive a little. She bore down with all her might, throwing her weightagain and again on her lever, and finally felt the big branchperceptibly move. After that it was easier, as its course was down hillover the snow to the mouth of the pit. Glowing, and pushing, wet withperspiration, she slowly maneuvered it along to the edge, turned itsquarely, gave it a great shove, and leaned over anxiously. Then shegave a great sigh of relief! Just as she had hoped, it went down sharpend first and stuck fast in the snow which had saved Molly from brokenbones. She was so out of breath with her work that for a moment shecould not speak. Then, "Molly, there! Now I guess you can climb up towhere I can reach you."

  Molly made a rush for any way out of her prison, and climbed, like thelittle practiced squirrel that she was, up from one stub to another tothe top of the branch. She was still below the edge of the pit there,but Betsy lay flat down on the snow and held out her hands. Molly tookhold hard, and, digging her toes into the snow, slowly wormed her way upto the surface of the ground.

  It was then, at that very moment, that Shep came bounding up to them,barking loudly, and after him Cousin Ann striding along in her rubberboots, with a lantern in her hand and a rather anxious look on her face.

  She stopped short and looked at the two little girls, covered with snow,their faces flaming with excitement, and at the black hole gaping behindthem. "I always TOLD Father we ought to put a fence around that pit,"she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Some day a sheep's going to falldown there. Shep came along to the house without you, and we thoughtmost likely you'd taken the wrong turn."

  Betsy felt terribly aggrieved. She wanted to be petted and praised forher heroism. She wanted Cousin Ann to REALIZE ... oh, if Aunt Frances wereonly there, SHE would realize...!

  "I fell down in the hole, and Betsy wanted to go and get Mr. Putney, butI wouldn't let her, and so she threw down a big branch and I climbedout," explained Molly, who, now that her danger was past, took Betsy'saction quite as a matter of course.

  "Oh, that was how it happened," said Cousin Ann. She looked down thehole and saw the big branch, and looked back and saw the long trail ofcrushed snow where Betsy had dragged it. "Well, now, that was quite agood idea for a little girl to have," she said briefly. "I guess you'lldo to take care of Molly all right!"

  She spoke in her usual voice and immediately drew the children afterher, but Betsy's heart was singing joyfully as she trotted alongclasping Cousin Ann's strong hand. Now she knew that Cousin Annrealized. ... She trotted fast, smiling to herself in the darkness.

  "What made you think of doing that?" asked Cousin Ann presently, as theyapproached the house.

  "Why, I tried to think what YOU would have done if you'd been there,"said Betsy.

  "Oh!" said Cousin Ann. "Well ..."

  She didn't say another word, but Betsy, glancing up into her face asthey stepped into the lighted room, saw an expression that made her givea little skip and hop of joy. She had PLEASED Cousin Ann.

  That night, as she lay in her bed, her arm over Molly cuddled up warmbeside her, she remembered, oh, ever so faintly, as something of noimportance, that she had failed in an examination that afternoon.