Back to School with Betsy Read online

  "Oh," said Betsy, "that will be a beautiful big butterfly some day."

  "How do you know?" asked Billy.

  "I had one once and kept it in a box and it wove itself inside of a cocoon. Then one day it came out of the cocoon and flew away. It was beautiful."

  "Do you think if I kept this one it would do the same thing?" asked Billy.

  "I guess it would," replied Betsy.

  "Have you a box that I could put it in?" asked Billy.

  "I'll go see," said Betsy, running off to the house.

  In a few moments she returned with an empty candy box. "You can have this," she said.

  With a little twig Billy guided the worm into the box.

  Just then Thumpy trotted past the children. He was carrying a bone in his mouth and he was covered with soft earth. "Oh, Thumpy!" cried Betsy. "You've been digging!"

  "And he has dug up a bone," said Billy.

  Thumpy started off on a run. He was afraid the children might take his bone away from him. He had dug deep for that bone and he didn't mean to lose it now.

  But the children were too much interested in the worm to bother about Thumpy and his bone.

  "You don't mind if I take this worm home, do you, Betsy?" asked Billy.

  "No," replied Betsy, "but I would like to see it when it turns into a butterfly."

  "Oh, sure!" said Billy, as he put the lid on the box.

  After about a half hour Billy went home. He carried the box very carefully.

  Betsy played in the garden until dinner time. When Mother called her, she went upstairs to wash her hands. Suddenly she remembered her lovely dress. She had forgotten to hang it up.

  She went to her closet and took out a hanger. Then she went into the guest room. Betsy took one look at the bed. Then she screamed. "Thumpy! Thumpy!" For there lay Thumpy, sound asleep, in the very middle of Betsy's pink taffeta dress.

  Thumpy jumped from the bed and dashed out of the room. To Betsy's horror, there lay the bone, right in the center of her pink skirt. The marks of Thumpy's paws were all over the dress.

  "Oh, Mother! Mother!" she screamed. "Mother, come quick!"

  Mother came running up the stairs. When she saw Betsy's dress, she said, "Oh, Betsy! Why didn't you hang it up as I asked you to?"

  Betsy began to cry. "I forgot, Mother," she sobbed. "I went out into the garden to see Billy. And now my dress is spoiled and I won't be able to be a flower girl."

  By this time Father had arrived. He had come upstairs to see what was the trouble.

  Mother picked up the bone and handed it to Father. "Here," she said, "do take this awful bone."

  Father took the bone downstairs and Mother picked up Betsy's dress. "Well, it certainly is a sight," she said. "What will I ever do with it?"

  Just then Father came dashing up the stairs, two steps at a time. "Give it to me, right away," he said. "It's five minutes of six. If I can get it to the cleaner's by six o'clock, it will be back by six o'clock tomorrow night."

  Father flew down the stairs with the dress under his arm. Betsy tore after him. "Let me go with you, Father," she cried. "Please let me go with you."

  Father jumped into the car and Betsy climbed in after him.

  "I couldn't stand waiting for you to come back," said Betsy, as Father started the car. "I have to see if the cleaner is still open."

  Father drove as fast as he could. Soon they were on the main street. There was a good bit of traffic and Father had to slow down. At the next corner there was a traffic light. Father had to stop. "At this rate we won't make it," he said.

  "Oh, Father! We have to make it," said Betsy.

  Just then Betsy spied Mr. Kilpatrick, the policeman who always took the children across the street.

  When Mr. Kilpatrick saw Betsy, he called out, "Hello, Little Red Ribbons. How are you?"

  "Just awful," replied Betsy.

  "What's that?" said Mr. Kilpatrick, walking over to the car.

  Betsy began to cry again, so Father told Mr. Kilpatrick that they were rushing to the cleaner's with Betsy's flower girl dress.

  Mr. Kilpatrick jumped on the running board. He blew his whistle. "Step on it," he said to Betsy's father.

  Father stepped on the gas and the car shot ahead. Mr. Kilpatrick kept blowing his whistle and Father drove like the wind, right down the middle of the main street. In no time at all they reached the cleaner's shop. Mr. Kilpatrick took the dress from Father. Before Father had come to a full stop, Mr. Kilpatrick was at the door of the shop. But the door was locked. The policeman pounded on the door with his great big fist. It made a terrific noise.

  In a moment the door was opened. Betsy was on the step now, beside Mr. Kilpatrick.

  The storekeeper looked frightened when he saw Mr. Kilpatrick. "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "This little girl has to have her dress cleaned by this time tomorrow," said Mr. Kilpatrick, handing over the dress. "It's for a wedding."

  "All right," said the cleaner. "I'll see that it is ready for her."

  "Oh, thank you, Mr. Kilpatrick," said Betsy.

  "That's all right," replied Mr. Kilpatrick. "We can't have Miss Grey's wedding spoiled."

  When Betsy finally sat down to eat her dinner, she said, "Oh, Mother, I don't believe I will ever forget to hang up a dress again."

  "I certainly hope not," said Mother.

  "I hope Thumpy has learned not to get on the beds," said Father.

  "Well, I gave him something that should help him to remember," said Mother.

  When Betsy's dress came back from the cleaner's, it looked as good as new.

  The next day was the wedding. Betsy could hardly wait until the time came to get dressed. She kept looking at the clock and the hands of the clock seemed to move more slowly than ever before. At last the time came. When she was all ready, Father drove Betsy and Mother to the church.

  When Betsy saw Miss Grey, she thought she had never seen anyone so beautiful. When Ellen arrived, Betsy said, "Miss Grey looks just like a fairy princess in that white veil."

  Betsy and Ellen stood listening to the music of the organ. When they heard the wedding march, they began walking up the aisle.

  Betsy could see Billy sitting on an end seat, up front. He was watching them and grinning from ear to ear.

  After the wedding was over, the little girls rode back to Miss Grey's house in the big automobile with the bride and groom. Betsy and Ellen had never felt so important in all of their lives.

  When they reached the house, they went upstairs to look at the wedding presents. The presents were all spread out on a big table. Betsy and Ellen were pleased to see their bowl of goldfish sitting right in the center of the table.

  Soon Billy arrived and he came up to look at the presents.

  "I think our present is the nicest," he said to Betsy and Ellen.

  Before long the house was full of people. They were laughing and chattering. The dining room table was covered with plates of sandwiches and cakes. The great big wedding cake stood in the center of the table. It was the biggest cake Billy had ever seen. A waiter stood by the table, cutting brick after brick of ice cream. When Billy took his plate of ice cream, he said to the waiter, "Mr. Jackson said I could have two plates of ice cream."

  "Very well," said the waiter. "Will you have them both at once or one at a time?"

  Billy thought this over for a moment and then he said, "I guess I'll have one at a time."

  "OK," said the waiter.

  Billy thought it was very funny that everyone stood up and ate. He always sat down at parties. So he and Betsy and Ellen carried their plates into the hall and sat on the stairs.

  When Billy was in the midst of eating his second plate of ice cream, he heard a noise upstairs. He put his plate down and ran up the stairs and into the room where the presents were. What did he find but Miss Grey's Persian cat in the center of the table. To Billy's horror, he had upset the fishbowl. Just as the cat was about to snatch up the striped fish, Billy shouted, "Scat! Get o
ut of there!"

  The cat jumped to the floor and flew out of the room.

  Billy set the bowl up again and put the goldfish back. He got a towel from the bathroom and mopped up the water. Then he put more water in the bowl. When everything was in order again, he went downstairs.

  "What was the matter?" asked Betsy and Ellen.

  "Oh, boy!" cried Billy. "The cat upset the bowl of goldfish and he almost ate up Billy in the bathing suit."

  "Oh!" cried Betsy. "Are the fish all right now?"

  "Sure," said Billy. "I rescued 'em."

  Just then Mr. Jackson came along. He had three little white boxes tied with white ribbons. He gave one to each of the children. "Here are your boxes of wedding cake," he said. "If you put them under your pillows tonight, you will marry the person you dream about."

  The children took their boxes and said, "Thank you."

  The next morning Billy came running into Betsy's house. "Hey, that wedding cake didn't work," he cried. "I dreamed about my grandmother all night. Who ever heard of marrying your grandmother?"

  "And I dreamed about goldfish," said Betsy. "I'm not going to marry goldfish."

  When Ellen arrived, Betsy said, "Ellen, who did you dream about?"

  Ellen looked at Billy. Then she looked down at her shoes and said, "I'm not going to tell you. It's a secret."

  5. Jimmy and Chummy

  When the day came for school to open, Betsy was bright and early.

  She had new brown oxfords to wear. Betsy had worn sandals all summer. As she looked at them now, lying beside her chair, she thought they looked much older than they had looked when she took them off the night before. They were old and brown and curled up like two au-

  tumn leaves. As Betsy looked at them and then looked down at her new oxfords, she knew that the summer was over. It was autumn and she was going back to school to be in the third grade.

  On her way to school, Betsy met Billy. Billy was carrying a candy box. "Hi, Betsy!" shouted Billy. "I'm taking the green worm to school. He's inside the cocoon now."

  In a few minutes Betsy and Billy met Christopher. Christopher was wearing a great big hat. It was the biggest hat Billy had ever seen. "Gee, Chris!" shouted Billy. "Where did you get the hat?"

  "I got it in Mexico," said Christopher. "And you don't call it a hat. It's a sombrero."

  "Well, it looks like a hat," said Billy.

  As the children came nearer the school, the crowd grew larger. There were Ellen and Sally and Betty Jane and the twins, Richard and Henry.

  The twins had a new dog named Chummy. He was a big red setter. Chummy was following the boys to school. They kept telling him to go back home but Chummy wouldn't go. He had followed the twins everywhere all summer and he had never been told to go home before. He couldn't believe that he wasn't wanted.

  "Go home, Chummy," Richard would say, chasing the dog back. "Go home." Chummy would run back a little way. But by the time Richard caught up with the other children, Chummy would be right by the twins' heels again.

  Then Henry would try to drive Chummy home. It was no use. Chummy was going where the twins went and nobody was going to stop him.

  Before long the children reached the big wide street where Mr. Kilpatrick directed the traffic. Mr. Kilpatrick was taking a group of first grade children across the street.

  "Hello, Mr. Kilpatrick," the children shouted.

  "We're big enough to go across the street by ourselves now, aren't we, Mr. Kilpatrick?" said Billy.

  "Don't be so cocky," said Mr. Kilpatrick, "or you'll go a-ridin' off on somebody's bumper."

  "We're in the third grade now," said Betsy.

  "Well, you've still got plenty to learn," said Mr. Kilpatrick. "So don't get your head swelled up."

  When Mr. Kilpatrick saw Christopher's sombrero, he said: "And sure your head must have begun to swell already, if you have to wear a hat as big as that."

  "It's a sombrero," said Christopher. "I got it when I went to Mexico with my daddy. And I rode on a donkey too."

  "Mr. Kilpatrick," said Richard, "our dog won't go home."

  "His name's Chummy," said Henry.

  "Well, what do you expect from a dog named Chummy?" said Mr. Kilpatrick.

  "What will we do with him?" asked Richard. "We can't take him in school."

  "If we take him home, we'll be late," said Henry.

  Mr. Kilpatrick looked at Chummy. Then he took off his hat and scratched his head. "Guess I'll have to take him home myself," he said. "Have you a collar on him?"

  "Yes," said Henry, "and it has our address and telephone number on it."

  Mr. Kilpatrick took a piece of rope out of the pocket of his car. He tied it to Chummy's collar. Then he boosted the dog into the red police car and tied the end of the rope to the brake. A great crowd of children had collected around the car.

  "Now," shouted Mr. Kilpatrick, "skedaddle, all of you."

  The children laughed. They all loved Mr. Kilpatrick. He was so gay and jolly.

  "Thank you, Mr. Kilpatrick," shouted the twins.

  "Sure, you're welcome," said Mr. Kilpatrick. "But if he bites my head off, you'll have to buy me a new one. And make certain the hair's red."

  Chummy looked after the children and whined. He had never been treated like this before. He didn't understand it at all.

  The children scampered off, running, jumping, and shouting. A block away from the school they came upon Mary Lou and her little brother, Jimmy. Mary Lou was in great trouble. Jimmy was lying flat on the pavement, screaming at the top of his voice.

  The children gathered around Jimmy and Mary Lou.

  "What's the matter with him?" asked Betsy.

  "He doesn't want to go to kindergarten," said Mary Lou. "Mamma brought him to school yesterday and put his name down for the kindergarten, and now he won't go."

  "I wanta go home," wailed Jimmy.

  "I can't take you home," said Mary Lou. "I'll be late if I take you home." Mary Lou began to cry too.

  "Wanta go home!" shrieked Jimmy at the top of his lungs.

  Just then Betsy had an idea. "Mary Lou," she said, "maybe Mr. Kilpatrick would take him home."

  "Yes, maybe he would," said Richard. "He's going to take Chummy home and you live right next door to us."

  Mary Lou stopped crying. "Come on, Jimmy," she said, "you can go home."

  Jimmy stopped crying. He rolled over on his fat little stomach and got up. Mary Lou took hold of his chubby hand and they started back to Mr. Kilpatrick. All of the children went with them.

  "I don't think Mr. Kilpatrick has gone yet," said Henry.

  "I hope not," said Mary Lou.

  When Mr. Kilpatrick saw the crowd returning, he called, "Now what's the matter with you? School isn't over already, is it?"

  "Mr. Kilpatrick," cried Henry, "Mary Lou's little brother won't go to kindergarten. Will you take him home? He lives right next door to us."

  "Bless us and save us!" shouted Mr. Kilpatrick in his great big voice. "Will you ever get to school this morning? Or are you going to spend the morning loading up my car?"

  "Will you take him, please?" asked Mary Lou.

  "Sure, I'll take him," said Mr. Kilpatrick. "But what I think he needs is to have the seat of his pants warmed."

  Mr. Kilpatrick opened the door of the car. Chummy let out a pleased yelp. He thought he was going to get out and go with the children.

  The policeman pushed the dog over and put Jimmy on the seat beside Chummy.

  "Thank you, Mr. Kilpatrick," said Mary Lou. "Will you tell Mamma that Jimmy was naughty and wouldn't go to school?"

  "You bet I will," said Mr. Kilpatrick.

  The children started off. They had only taken a few steps when Jimmy opened his mouth again. He let out a piercing scream.

  The children turned round.

  "Now what's the matter with you?" said Mr. Kilpatrick.

  "Wanta go to school!" screamed Jimmy. "Wanta go to school! Wanta go to school!"

  "Well, make up
your mind," said Mr. Kilpatrick. "If you want to go to school, go to school." He opened the car door and lifted Jimmy out. He set him on the pavement. "Now," said the policeman, "do you want to go to school or do you want to go home?"

  "Wanta go to school," said Jimmy.

  Mary Lou took hold of his hand again and he trotted off with the crowd of children.

  When they reached the schoolyard gate, Jimmy stuck out his under lip. He began to cry again. "Wanta go home!" he yelled. "Wanta go home."

  "You can't go home now," said Mary Lou.

  Jimmy took hold of the iron fence and held tight. "Wanta go home!" he screamed.

  Mary Lou tugged as hard as she could, but Jimmy held on to the fence with all of his might.

  Suddenly, through the gate, bounded a big red setter. It was Chummy. He was dragging three feet of rope with him. He dashed up to Richard and licked his face.

  "Oh, Chummy!" cried Richard and Henry together.

  In a moment Mr. Kilpatrick's red car stopped in front of the gate. He jumped out and ran into the schoolyard. "Where's that good-for-nothing dog?" he cried.

  In a second he had hold of Chummy's rope. "He broke loose while my back was turned," said Mr. Kilpatrick.

  On his way back to the car, Mr. Kilpatrick saw Jimmy. Jimmy was screaming, "Don't wanta go to school!"

  Without a word Mr. Kilpatrick reached down and picked up Jimmy. He stuck him under his arm like a bag of flour. Jimmy kicked his chubby legs and yelled. But it didn't make any difference to Mr. Kilpatrick.

  In a moment the red police car had gone and Mr. Kilpatrick, Chummy, and Jimmy were out of sight.

  The children breathed a sigh of relief and went in to school.

  In the afternoon, when school was over, the children came trooping out. There on the school steps sat Jimmy with the big red setter. Jimmy was looking like a little cherub.

  When Mary Lou and the twins saw them, they could hardly believe their eyes.

  Jimmy looked up at them with a sweet smile. "We comed back," he said. "Wanta go to school."

  6. The Tale of the Blackboard Picture