Free Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace Page A

asked.
    “No sir,” said Betsy. “Mamma, it’s Julia’s turn to wipe the dishes.”
    “Yes,” said her mother, “and you may look after Margaret for me until it’s time for her nap.”
    While Julia was wiping the dishes, Betsy hunted up her marbles bag. She emptied the marbles into a box, and pinned the bag inside her red plaid dress. It made a bump on her chest. Taking Margaret’s chubby hand, she ran out to the hitching block as fast as Margaret’s chubby legs would go.
    Tacy was already there, and Tib was in sight, wheeling Hobbie’s gocart up the hill.
    There was a bump on Tib’s chest beneath her yellow dimity dress; and there was a bump on Tacy’s chest too beneath her striped blue and brown gingham. While they were admiring one another’s bumps Julia and Katie started up the hill, carrying lunch baskets, and a stick and a square flat package which they always took to their Club.
    Betsy made a face at them. It was a regular monkeyface, the kind her mother had said she should not make for fear her face would freeze that way.
    “Oh dear!” she said. “Now I’ve been bad. I must put a stone in my bag.”
    And she found a pebble and put it into her bag.
    “I think I’d better put a stone in my bag too,” said Tacy. “Because when Katie told me she was going to her Club I called her stuck up.”
    So Tacy put a pebble in
her
bag.
    Tib ran to the foot of the hill and called loudly after Julia and Katie.
    “You’re stuck up! You’re stuck up!”
    And
she
put a pebble in
her
bag.
    Margaret and Hobbie began shouting too. “’tuck up! ’tuck up!” But they didn’t understand about the pebbles.
    Betsy’s mother came to the door of the little yellow cottage.
    “Betsy! Betsy! What are you playing?”
    “This is our Club, Mamma. We’ve got a Club too. This is our T.C.K.C. Club.”
    “What do you do in your Club?” asked Mrs. Ray.
    “Oh,” said Betsy. “We see how good we can be.”
    “Well, there’s certainly no harm in that,” said her mother. She went back into the house.
    But the Club didn’t work out exactly as they had expected. The little bags didn’t make them want tobe good; it was too much fun putting in the stones.
    Tib climbed up on the rain barrel and drabbled the skirts of her yellow dimity dress … two stones.
    Tacy climbed the backyard maple and swung by her knees from a branch; her mother had said this was dangerous … one stone.
    Betsy ran into the kitchen and got cookies without asking … one stone.
    Margaret ran happily screaming in a circle. Hobbie bounced up and down in the gocart and yelled.
    “’tone! ’tone!” cried Margaret and Hobbie. For even Margaret and Hobbie knew now that stones were part of the game. But Betsy, Tacy and Tib didn’t give them any stones. They didn’t pay any attention to them.
    Betsy’s mother came to the door again.
    “A little less noise would be
very
good,” she said.
    “Yes, ma’am,” said Betsy.
    But it was such fun putting stones in their bags. They grew naughtier and naughtier.
    Tacy picked a bouquet of her mother’s zinnias. Betsy filled the pockets of her red plaid dress with mud. Tib jumped into the seat of the baker’s wagon, which was standing in front of Mrs. Benson’s house while the baker’s boy offered his tray of jelly rolls and doughnuts at Mrs. Benson’s back door. She tookup the reins and took up the whip and pretended she was going to drive off. She scared the baker’s boy almost to death.
    Betsy’s mother came to the door again and said that she thought they were possessed. Tacy’s mother came to
her
door and told Tacy to be a good girl. And Tib’s mother would have come to
her
door too, only Tib’s house was so far away that her mother didn’t know a thing about what was going on.
    The bags on their chests grew bigger and bigger. At last they were almost full.
    Tacy sat down on the hitching block, red-faced from laughing.
    “Gol darn!” she said distinctly.

    “Tacy!”
cried Betsy.