Free Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace

else we won’t go there.”
    “We’re pretty good already,” Betsy said. “We’re lots better than Julia and Katie. Getting up a Club and not inviting us!”
    “The stuck-up things!” Tacy said.
    Betsy and Tacy and Tib all covered their mouths with their hands and stuck out their tongues three times. They had made an agreement to do this, in public or in private, whenever Julia’s and Katie’s Club was mentioned. Julia’s and Katie’s Club was called the B.H.M. Club. No one under ten years of age had been invited to join. The meetings were held on the Big Hill every Tuesday afternoon. And this was Tuesday morning.
    “I know what let’s do!” cried Betsy. “Let’s get up a Club ourselves.”
    “Let’s get up a Club about being good,” suggested Tacy.
    “That doesn’t sound like fun,” said Tib.
    “Well, we can’t think about fun all the time if we want to go to Heaven,” said Betsy.
    “That’s right,” said Tacy. “The saints didn’t have much fun; I’ll tell you that. They used to wear hair shirts.”
    “Did they?” asked Betsy. “What for?”
    “To punish themselves. To make themselves gooder. And if they did anything bad they put pebbles in their shoes.”
    “What else did they do?” Betsy asked.
    Tacy looked at her suspiciously.
    “You’re not thinking about doing things like thatin our Club, are you, Betsy?” she asked.
    “Not exactly,” said Betsy. She sat thinking, her bare toes curled around a wooden bar of the fence.
    “My mamma wouldn’t let me wear any different kind of shirt,” said Tib. She sounded as though she didn’t like the Club.
    “Don’t worry,” said Betsy. “We wouldn’t know where to buy hair shirts, even. Besides, we haven’t got any money. What would be a good name for our Club, do you suppose?”
    They all thought hard.
    Betsy suggested The Christian Kindness Club. And they liked that name because it made such nice initials. Clubs were called by their initials, for their names were kept secret. T.C.K.C. sounded fine.
    “What shall we do in our Club?” asked Tib. She still sounded as though she didn’t like it. But Tib always did what Betsy and Tacy wanted to do. She was very pleasant to play with. “Will we have refreshments?” she asked, cheering up.
    “No,” said Betsy. “This is a pretty serious Club, this T.C.K.C.”
    “It’s about being good,” said Tacy.
    “And we’ll never get to be good if we don’t punish ourselves for being bad. A child could see that,” said Betsy. “So in our Club we’ll punish ourselves for being bad.”
    “But we haven’t been bad yet,” said Tib. “I wasn’t even intending to be bad.”
    “We were born bad,” said Tacy. “Everyone is. Go on, Betsy.”
    “The pebbles gave me the idea,” said Betsy. “We’ll take our marble bags and empty out the marbles and pin the bags inside our dresses.”
    Tib looked uncomfortable. “Doesn’t that remind you of those pill boxes?” she asked. “There isn’t any cutting off hair in this Club, is there, Betsy?”
    “Of course not,” said Betsy. “This is a Being Good Club. We’re going to put stones in those bags around our necks.”
    “Oh,” said Tib.
    “Every time we do anything bad,” continued Betsy, “we’ll put a stone in. If we’re very bad, we’ll have to put in two stones, or three. By tonight those bags will be bulging full, I imagine …”
    “I wouldn’t wonder,” said Tacy, her eyes sparkling.
    “I don’t see why,” said Tib. “I thought we were going to be
good.”
    Just then the whistles blew for twelve o’clock. And Betsy and Tacy and Tib flew in three directions.
    “We’ll meet on my hitching block right after dinner. Bring your bags,” cried Betsy, as she flew.
    Betsy hurried through her dinner. Julia was hurrying too, for the B.H.M. Club, so she said, met that afternoon. When Julia said that, Betsy lifted her napkin and poked out her tongue three times.
    “Did you choke on something, Betsy?” her father