Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace
Everything came out right, before Rip raised his glass.
“Here’s to your good health, und to your family’s, und may you all live long and prosper!”
No wonder the audience almost wore out its hands with clapping!
Again and again the company appeared before the curtain. Betsy, Tacy, and Winona went now, trying to curtsey like Tib, smiling broadly at their respective families. Their classmates in the peanut gallery shouted and whooped. It was glorious! Like all glorious things it had to end, but unlike most of them it was going to be repeated that night, right after supper.
The girls scampered down to the basement to get into their own clothes. They washed their faces but were careful to leave some actress-red on their cheeks. They rushed back up to the stage door where their families were gathered. Betsy saw Jerry and Julia, Rena and Margaret. Her father, she knew, would be out in the alley, holding Old Mag.
To her surprise and pleasure she recognized Mr. Kee in the crowd around the door. In street clothes, he was tall and slender with a sweep of dramatic red hair.
“Braids,” he said to Betsy, coming forward, “what do you think your mother is having for supper?”
Betsy was surprised at the question.
“Why … fried potatoes, probably,” she said.
“Just what I thought,” the young man answered. “In that case, I’m going home with you.”
“You’re … coming … home with me?” Betsy was delighted and bewildered.
“The reason I’m coming home with you,” Mr. Kee said confidentially, “is that your mother fries potatoes so extremely well.”
He smiled at her, his bright eyes dancing. He had a smile like … like … like …
“Uncle Keith!” cried Betsy. She tumbled into his arms.
Echoes to her cry sprang up all around her.
“Uncle Keith!” cried Tacy.
“Uncle Keith!” cried Tib.
“Uncle Keith!” cried Winona, and Julia, and Margaret, and even Rena.
Mr. Ray, out in the alley, heard the cries; he left Old Mag standing alone and pushed his way in at the door and found the young man’s hand.
Dancing about in delirious joy, Betsy saw Mrs. Poppy. She was standing a little distance away, watching them and smiling. Her eyes looked as though she were ready to cry.
14
The Curtain Goes Up
HE SLEIGH was crowded going home, but nobody minded. In the back seat Margaret sat on Rena’s lap, and Julia and Betsy sat close together squeezing each other’s hands. They did not talk much. The great adventure of the play was dimmed by the far greater adventure of finding Uncle Keith.
In the front seat Uncle Keith talked in a quick earnest voice. He sat with his arm along the back of the seat, his face turned to Mr. Ray’s kindly and now serious face. Uncle Keith wore a fur coat and a broad-brimmed actorish hat. His deep voice ran on and on beneath the chime of sleigh bells and the beat of Old Mag’s hoofs.
He seemed to be pouring out the story of his wanderings. He had been in the Spanish War, the girls heard him say. He had been at Santiago. As an actor he had not done too badly; he had had his ups and downs; all actors had. The present engagement was with a solid company. But it had not satisfied his pride; he had not been willing to make his presence known in his own home town … until he met Betsy. He turned with his flashing smile. Mr. Ray turned, too.
“We must plan quickly how we’re going to surprise Mother.”
There was a clamor of voices then, for everyone had an idea. Mr. Ray wanted Uncle Keith to rap at the kitchen door and pretend he was delivering groceries. Margaret thought he should go down the chimney like Santa Claus. Julia wanted him to stand underneath the window and sing a serenade.
Rena thought Mrs. Ray should be prepared.
“She might have an attack,” said Rena. “Lord-a-mercy, it’s the last thing in her mind to have her long-lost brother walking in.”
“But she’s never had an attack,” said Mr. Ray. “She doesn’t have attacks. What’s your idea, Betsy?”
Betsy bounced beneath the buffalo robe.
“Let’s take a scene out of the play,” she cried. “You be Rip, Uncle Keith, and take Margaret on your back, and Julia and I will carry your coat tails, and all of us will prance through the kitchen door.”
“Betsy has picked it,” said Uncle Keith. “That’s just what we will do.”
They climbed out of the sleigh on the little road that led around to the barn.
“I’ll be along to give you some supper,” Mr. Ray told Old Mag, slapping her bay rump.
Old Mag went on without a driver. The conspirators tiptoed over the snowy lawn and looked in at the kitchen window.
Sure enough, Mrs. Ray was frying potatoes. She was dressed for the theatre, in her green broadcloth dress … it was that shade of soft green which was most becoming to her. She wore a green bow in her high red pompadour. A fresh checkered apron was tied around her waist.
“Still as slim as a breeze,” said Uncle Keith.
“She’s a wonder,” said Mr. Ray.
He pushed open the side kitchen door.
“Hi, Jule! Want to see a scene from the play?”
“Is my actress daughter in it?” Mrs. Ray asked, laughing.
“There are plenty of actors in it,” said Mr. Ray.
“Well, hurry up with it. You’re letting the cold in.”
But he held the door open a minute.
Uncle Keith put his hat on the back of his head and shook his red hair into his eyes. He picked up Margaret and swung her to his back. Julia and Betsy took hold of his coat tails.
“We laugh and yell,” Betsy explained.
Laughing and yelling, they all trooped into the kitchen.
The long-handled fork Mrs. Ray was holding clattered to the floor. She turned so pale that it looked for a moment as though Rena might have been right about that attack. But instantly a wave of color rushed back into her cheeks. Joyful tears filled her eyes, and she ran to Uncle Keith who flung his arms about her.
Julia and Betsy and Margaret stood silent and abashed. Rena wiped her eyes, saying “Lord-a-mercy!” “Lord-a-mercy!” over and over again. Mr. Ray’s eyes looked dampish too.
“Now, now! There, there!” he kept saying, for Betsy’s mother was crying hard. Uncle Keith was crying too, and presently Julia began to sniff, and then Betsy did, and then Margaret.
“Make some coffee, Rena,” Mr. Ray said. “Come on, you idiots, and cry in the parlor, so that Rena can get supper on. I’m going out to feed Old Mag. She’s got more sense than you have.”
That made them all laugh, and Rena took off her coat and her best hat with pansies on it, and tied on an apron. When Mr. Ray came back from the barn the family was in the back parlor. The crying was over, and everyone was talking at once trying to explain to Mrs. Ray just what had happened.
“I didn’t know he was Uncle Keith because his name was Mr. Kee,” Betsy said.
“Mr. Kee?” Mrs. Ray asked.
“Yes,” said Uncle Keith. “I act under two names usually, Waring Kee for the Nicholas Vedder part, and Keith Warrington for Hendrik. But I asked to be programmed only as Waring Kee in Deep Valley.”
“Why did you do that, Keith?” Mrs. Ray asked, holding his hands. “Would you really have come to Deep Valley and gone away without seeing me?”
“I’m afraid I would have,” said Uncle Keith, looking ashamed, “if Braids here hadn’t told me you’d forgiven me.”
“Then how lucky, how incredibly lucky, that you and Betsy happened to get acquainted!”
Uncle Keith smoothed back his red hair thoughtfully.
“That wasn’t just luck,” he said. “Somebody managed it. I felt there was something funny in the air when Drew, the stage manager, asked me to look after the ‘supes.’ That’s never part of my job. He said it was a favor the theatre owner’s wife had asked …”
“Mrs. Poppy,” said Betsy. “I heard her thank Mr. Drew for arranging it.”
“Mrs. Poppy!” exclaimed Mrs. Ray. “But how could she have known who he was?”
“I told her about Uncle Keith long ago,” said Betsy. “She’s been making inquiries about him. She asked me not to tell you, Mamma, because she didn’t want you disappointed in case she didn’t find him.”
“She saw the name Kee Waring, no doubt, and thought that was an easy change from Keith Warrington,” Mr. Ray said.
“Or she may have looked up a Minneapolis program. I was Keith Warrington there,” said Uncle Keith.
As it came out later, both these things had happened. Mrs. Poppy had seen the name Kee Waring, and thinking it sounded like Keith Warrington had asked Mr. Poppy to get a Minneapolis program. She had received one just a few minutes before Betsy, Tacy, Tib, and Winona had found her pacing back and forth in front of the hotel.
Mrs. Ray’s eyes grew soft as Mrs. Poppy’s part in the affair became clear.
“How very very kind of her!” she said. “From now on, Betsy, Mrs. Poppy is my friend as well as yours.”
“Will you call on her?” asked Betsy.
“With my card case and Old Mag, just as you asked me to,” Mrs. Ray answered, smiling.
“Will you take me?” asked Julia. “Remember what Betsy said about her helping me with my singing.”
“I’ll take you too,” Mrs. Ray promised.
Betsy knew then that Mrs. Poppy’s wish was coming true.
All talking at once, they moved to the dining room, where Uncle Keith ate fried potatoes with one arm around Mrs. Ray and Margaret on his lap. He kept looking across the table at Julia and Betsy with his dancing bright blue eyes.
Rena had made a pot of coffee, good and strong. And she had stirred up some biscuits to go with the fried potatoes and cold meat. Without being told, she had opened some Damson plum preserves. It was a good supper, but only the children ate much.
Uncle Keith kept looking around the table at the faces under the hanging lamp as though he couldn’t look at them enough.
After supper Betsy took him upstairs to see her desk.
“I suppose you’ll want your trunk now,” she said. “And that’s all right. I can get another desk.”
“Don’t you dare!” he said. “Braids, some of the stories and poems I’ve always wanted to write are going to be written on this trunk.”
Betsy liked to hear him say that. It made her feel better about the sheet of pink stationery that had gone to the Ladies’ Home Journal and had never been heard from.
When they got down stairs, Uncle Keith asked Julia to sing for him. She sang a new song called The Rosary, and she sang it so well that Uncle Keith got up and kissed her.
Mr. Ray went out to the front porch and brought in the newspaper.
“Thought I’d see what the Sun had to say about your show,” he remarked, unfolding it.
“Good gosh!” said Uncle Keith to Betsy, jumping up. “You and I have to get back to the theatre.”
He looked around for his coat and hat, and Julia ran to get them for him. Betsy started putting on her wraps too.
“Can you come back here to stay tonight?” Betsy’s mother asked.
“Yes, I can. Tomorrow’s Sunday. I can take the train to Omaha tomorrow night.”
“I’ll bring Old Mag around right away,” Mr. Ray said.
He delayed, though, to glance at the newspaper. And then he did not move.
“The notice of the play will be on the inside, dear,” Mrs. Ray said, but Mr. Ray did not open the paper further. He stared at the front page.
“Well, bless my soul!” he said at last, in such an unbelieving tone that everyone started. Julia ran to look over his shoulder.
“Betsy!” she cried.
Dropping her overshoes, Betsy ran to look. She could hardly believe her eyes at what she saw.
There on the front page of Winona’s father’s paper, in the very center of the page, enclosed in a decorative box made of roses and doves, was a poem. The title was printed at the top and the author’s name at the bottom.
The title was, The Curtain Goes Up.
The author’s name was Betsy Warrington Ray.
“Why, Betsy, how did this happen?” her mother asked in an agitated voice.
“I don’t know,” said Betsy. “I’ve no idea.”
“Did you send the poem to the paper?”
“No. But I gave it to Winona. She asked me for it. She liked it.”
“Liked it!” said Mrs. Ray. “I should think she would like it. It’s splendid! It’s wonderful.”
Mrs. Ray always thought that about her children’s achievements.
“I love it!” cried Julia.
“Couldn’t have done better myself,” said Mr. Ray.
Rena came running from the kitchen to look, and Margaret took the paper into her chubby hands.
Uncle Keith was all ready to leave for the theatre. He had put on his fur coat, and his hat was in his hand. He was in a hurry, but he didn’t act hurried.
Standing in the middle of the Ray front parlor, he read Betsy’s poem aloud.
Betsy’s father stood listening, trying not to look proud. Betsy’s mother was crying for the second time that night. Margaret’s face was shining as though it had been buttered. And Julia held Betsy’s hand tight.
Uncle Keith read the poem aloud in his beautiful trained actor’s voice. It wasn’t as good as he made it sound; Betsy knew that. But it was good enough so that she felt as she listened that some day she could write something good. Some day in her maple or on Uncle Keith’s trunk, she would write something good.
Tacy would be proud, and so would Tib. And so would Winona who had brought about the present golden moment. And so would Miss Sparrow who had helped her at the library. And so would dear Mrs. Poppy on whom her mother would call.
Thoughts are such fleet magic things. Betsy’s thoughts swept a wide arc while Uncle Keith read her poem aloud. She thought of Julia learning to sing with Mrs. Poppy. She thought of Tib learning to dance. She thought of herself and Tacy and Tib going into their ’teens. She even thought of Tom and Herbert and of how, by and by, they would be carrying her books and Tacy’s and Tib’s up the hill from high school.
“The curtain goes up,
The curtain goes up …”
Uncle Keith read in his vibrant actor’s voice.
THE END
About the Author
MAUD HART LOVELACE was born on April 25, 1892, in Mankato, Minnesota. Like Betsy, Maud followed her mother around the house at age five asking questions such as “How do you spell going down the street?” for the stories she had already begun to write. Soon she was writing poems and plays. When Maud was ten, a booklet of her poems was printed; and by age eighteen, she had sold her first short story.
The Hart family left Mankato shortly after Maud’s high school graduation in 1910 and settled in Minneapolis, where Maud attended the University of Minnesota. In 1917, she married Delos W. Lovelace, a newspaper reporter who later became a popular writer of short stories.
The Lovelaces’ daughter, Merian, was born in 1931. Maud would tell her daughter bedtime stories about her childhood, and it was these stories that gave her the idea of writing the Betsy-Tacy books. Maud did not intend to write an entire series when Betsy-Tacy, the first book, was published in 1940, but readers asked for more stories. So Maud took Betsy through high school and beyond college to the “great world” and marriage. The final book in the series, Betsy’s Wedding, was published in 1955.
The Betsy-Tacy books are based very closely on Maud’s own life. “I could make it all up, but in these Betsy-Tacy stories, I love to work from real incidents,” Maud wrote. “The Ray family is a true portrayal of the Hart family. Mr. Ray is like Tom Hart; Mrs. Ray like Stella Palmer Hart; Julia like Kathleen; Margaret like Helen; and Betsy is like me, except that, of course, I glamorized her to make her a proper heroine.” Tacy and Tib are based on Maud’s real-life best friends, Frances “Bick” Kenney and Marjorie “Midge” Gerlach, and
In fact, so much in the books was taken from real life that it is sometimes difficult to draw the line between fact and fiction. And through the years, Maud received a great deal of fan mail from readers who were fascinated by the question—what is true, and what is made up?
The “Melborn Hotel” was really the Saulpaugh Hotel, which once stood on the corner of Front Street at Main, in Mankato.
The Opera House
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About Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
BETSY AND TACY GO DOWNTOWN was published in 1943. Like Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, it was first published under a different title, Downtown. The publisher later decided to add the names “Betsy and Tacy” to the title so readers would know it was part of the growing series. The book is based on things that happened in 1904 and 1905, when Maud, Bick, and Midge were twelve years old. Maud recalled, “As we grew older we made more trips downtown”—just as Betsy, Tacy, and Tib do in the book.
Downtown Deep Valley is a fictional version of Maud’s hometown, Mankato. In the early 1900s, Mankato was “a thriving county seat” with a population of about eleven thousand people. Maud uses many of Mankato’s actual street names in the book. Front Street, Broad Street, and Second Street are all described in exact detail, as are the Melborn Hotel (really the Saulpaugh Hotel), the new Carnegie Library, and the Opera House.
We are introduced to several new characters in Downtown. Not surprisingly, they are all based on real people. Winona Root was based on Maud’s friend Beulah Hunt. Her father, Frank W. Hunt, ran a newspaper, and as Maud remembers: “Sometimes, if we were lucky, we went to the matinee at the Opera House; on passes, since Beulah’s father was the editor of the Free Press.” Mr. and Mrs. Poppy were based on Clarence and Roma Saulpaugh, who ran the Saulpaugh Hotel. Midge got a ride in one of the first autos to reach Mankato, just like Tib, although we don’t know if it was Mr. Saulpaugh’s. While writing Downtown, Maud wrote to a Mankato friend: “I would like to bring in Mr. Bennett … or Mr. Saulpaugh’s automobile … I feel sure it was about that date that Midge took her famous ride.” And Uncle Keith was based on Frank Palmer, her mother’s brother. He really did run away from home and join an opera troupe, but since Maud didn’t meet him until she was grown up, the touching reunion scene at the end of the book never took place in real life.