The Betsy Book

[You will find earlier chapters if you scroll down the page]

Betsy sat on the floor with all her toys and books around her. A cardboard box was next to her. Mom had given her the box and told her she could take any of the toys and books to Wheaton that fit into it, but no more. The more items her family moved, the more it would cost, and they needed to save every nickel they could.

As she looked over the toys on the floor, Betsy knew immediately which she had to take along. Her bag of marbles, definitely. She played marbles most nice days at school. There would be children to play marbles with at her new school. It was funny: only the boys were much fun at marbles. There were some girls who would play, but they usually started crying when they lost marbles or they refused to give the ones to Betsy that she had won, fair and square. It was a lot more fun to play with the boys. Of course Betsy hated losing marbles, but the risk of losing was part of the excitement of the game.

Betsy poured the marbles from the leather bag onto the floor. She pushed them gently with her finger, enjoying the different colors and sizes. The largest were the shooters. They were white with colors swirled through them; red, blue and green. The red ones were her favorites of these large marbles. They reminded her cherry pie with vanilla ice cream melting into the red juice. She licked the marble as an experiment. Yuck. The other marbles were cat’s eyes, steellies, and aggies, which looked like the shooters, only smaller.

Back went the marbles into the bag, and Betsy tied the top tight. Her eyes fell on the roller skates. The key for the skates was on a shoelace looped over a wheel. Betsy wore the key around her neck when skating in case the skates needed tightening. She picked up a skate and fitted her shoe into the foot bed. Her foot must have grown; she had to pull the skate a little further apart than the last time she’d worn them in the fall. Betsy fitted the key over the peg on the side and tightened it to her foot. Skates could fit any size, so one pair was enough for kids for their whole childhood. Betsy had had these since she was six.

Mom liked to tell a story about Betsy from the time she was learning to skate. The first time she put on a pair, Betsy had Dad help her adjust the skates to fit her shoe, and then he pulled her to her feet. Betsy immediately fell down, but got up and tried again. Learning to skate involved a lot of falling down and getting up, she discovered.

One day when Betsy was still doing more falling down than skating, she came to the door and asked Mom if she could take her little red chair outside.

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” said Mom. She opened the door and handed Betsy the chair. Betsy took the chair down to the sidewalk and set it in the grass. Mom laughed when she told how Betsy would skate and fall, skate and fall, and then go sit on the little red chair to rest and inspect the new scrapes on her knees.

It was a little embarrassing to remember, but it had felt good to rest on the chair instead of the grass. Mom did not like grass stains on Betsy’s dresses; it was hard work getting stain out. Betsy thought if she could wear knee pants with leather patches like the boys had, Mom wouldn’t worry about dirt so much. But girls didn’t wear any sort of pants–dresses only. Betsy sighed, and put the skates in the box.

The boxes of painted metal cars and trucks were next, in their original boxes. It surprised Betsy how many kids didn’t have the boxes for their toys anymore. She liked to put her toys away just so. Then they stayed looking new longer, and she rarely lost anything.

Her softballs and tennis balls went into the box, along with a bat and a tennis racket. Besty loved to play ball with the boys, and she could play as well as any of them. It was frustrating to play, though, because arguments would start. Then the game was delayed and, sometimes, ended because everyone was mad. Betsy just wanted to play, never mind whether someone was safe or out. She added her bouncing balls to the box as well.

Now she faced making a hard decision. She had over twenty dolls in her closet, and she didn’t like any of them much. When family visited, she often was given a gift, and most often it was a DOLL. Betsy thought there was nothing duller than a doll. All a doll did was sit there, and the girls she’d watched playing with dolls just kept changing the clothes over and over. Where was the fun doing that? Usually, if a girl asked her to play dolls, Betsy found a reason to leave before too long.

So the dolls sat in their boxes, staring at Betsy with their lifeless eyes. Fortunately, Betsy’s parents had learned early on that she didn’t like doll so she didn’t have to worry about hurting their feelings. She knew Mom was disappointed she didn’t like dolls, though.

Other girls named their dolls, and talked about them as if they were alive. It seemed so obvious to Betsy that dolls were not alive. It was like Betsy pretending her trucks had names or personalities. Ridiculous.

Would Mom be mad if she didn’t take the dolls? They wouldn’t all fit in the box anyway, so she couldn’t expect Betsy to take them all. She looked at them again, and chose a Raggedy Ann and a baby doll in a long blue dress her grandmother had given her. That should satisfy Mom.

Now for books and magazines. Betsy loved to read Childlife magazines she got each month, but decided she would not take them since she would get more in the mail. When Betsy read the magazines, she avoided the stories marked “continued.” Before she learned to read, Mom read the magazines to her. When they came to a “continued” story, though, Mom said they couldn’t read it. Betsy figured there must be something very bad about these stories if Mom wouldn’t read them.

Into the box went the [Robert Louis Stevenson poetry] and her collection of fairy tales that Dad read to her at night. Also a favorite book that had a dog named Patter in it. When Betsy got a dog, she would name it Patter, too.

There. That was everything, Betsy thought, and peered into the back of her closet to make sure. Her eye fell on a box in the back she’d forgotten: the fire department she’d gotten when she was three. She smiled when she remembered how she’d gotten it.

Every year at Christmastime, Mom and Dad took Betsy to Marshall Field’s Department Store to see the beautifully decorated windows. Elves hammered toys, snow glittered, and wrapped presents with beautiful bows were arranged in a magical scene. Inside the store, a huge Christmas tree in the center of the store took Betsy’s breath away. Then her family rode the elevator to the toy department. Santa was waiting to hear what she wanted for Christmas.

That particular year they got in line to see Santa with crowds of people. Tiny Betsy danced around her parents’ legs with excitement. Suddenly, Mom and Dad noticed that Betsy was gone. They began to look around in concern, but couldn’t see her. Then they heard a familiar voice.

“Santa. Santa!” There was Betsy at the head of the line, marching fearlessly toward the red-suited man on his throne. “Santa, I want a fire ME-partment!” announced Betsy firmly, and appeared surprised when the crowd–and Santa–laughed.

Santa came through that year with a beautiful fire department set, including a building, two trucks, a little rubber hose, and some firemen made of metal, painted black, with yellow boots and red hats. Betsy had played with the fire station for many happy hours, but now she was a bit old for it.
Just then Mom stepped into the room. “Good work, Betsy,” she said as she looked through the box. “You’ve made good choices. We can send the other items to the Salvation Army downtown to give to children who don’t have any toys.”

“Mom, what should I do about the fire department? It won’t all fit in the box, but I can’t leave it behind. Couldn’t we fit it in?”

Mom thought for a minute. “What do you like best about the fire department?”

“The trucks. I like to make the siren sound. R-r-r-wi-i-i-r!” Betsy demonstrated loudly.

Mom covered her ears. “Yes, yes, Betsy, all right,” Mom said. “Let’s see. You have room for the trucks, I think. Why don’t you take them and leave the rest?” Betsy decided that would work, and tucked them down the side.

“Mom, will there be a place to make roads for my cars and trucks?”

“Oh, yes, dear. You’ll have a whole back yard.”

Together they closed the lid of the box. Betsy felt a little sad as they put the toys she was not taking into another box. It was hard to imagine another child playing with them.

“Come along, Betsy. Time to set the table. No long face now. You have lots of toys, and some children will be very happy you’ve given up some of your things.”

Betsy put a smile on her face for Mom, and trailed behind her to the dining room.

© Kathy Mortensen 2005

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Betsy Book. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.