Betty's Happy Year

Jeanette’s high and mighty air was almost too much for Betty, but, as a spasm of laughter seized her, she managed to turn it into a fit of coughing.

“I have a fearful cold,” she said, still whispering hoarsely, “but it will be better soon. Did you say you had a position for me? I need money very much and I know you’ll help me, won’t you?”

“Bless my soul! I don’t know!” exclaimed poor Mr. Irving, who was totally bewildered now by the trio of poverty-stricken girls. “I don’t give out positions. My assistants do that. What do you want, anyhow?”

A short pause followed this sentence, and then, throwing off her veil with one hand, and pulling off her glasses with the other, Betty cried:

“I want a hat, Grandpa! I want a hat!”

“Bless my soul!” gasped Mr. Irving, dropping back into his chair. “Betty! bless my soul!” and then, as the other girls took off their veils and broke into bursts of laughter, Betty snatched up the desk calendar, which stood at April 1, and held it before her grandfather’s dazed eyes.

Rapidly, then, it dawned upon him. The laughing girls, the date of April 1, and Betty’s demand for a hat, were the missing links to a full understanding of it all.

“A perfect success, Betty!” cried Jack, coming up to the jolly group when he heard the laughter.

“Was it!” cried Betty; “was it, Grandpa?”

“You scamp!” he cried; “you rogue! you mischief!” and seizing Betty, he kissed her rosy cheeks in hearty appreciation of her clever practical joke.

“Well, I should say it was!” exclaimed Mr. Irving, who was, as Mrs. McGuire had prophesied, quite as much pleased with the whole thing as were the jokers themselves. Then Dorothy and Jeanette were greatly complimented on their pretty acting; and Jack, as his share of the performance was explained, also received commendation from the old gentleman.

“The very best joke ever!” Mr. Irving exclaimed, going off again and again in peals of laughter. “How did you get in, Betty? I’ve given orders to admit no one when I’m busy.”

“Oh, I just told them I was Betty,” she replied. “The boy looked at me suspiciously at first, but when I spoke without my ‘cold,’ of course he knew me!”

“You little witch! Nobody ever tricked me before! Now, you, each of you, and Jack too, can get the very best hats you can find in Boston and send the bill to me.”

“Oh, goody, Grandpa, that will be great fun!” cried Betty. “But you go with us, won’t you, to pick them out?”

“Yes, I’ll go right now.”

“No; we can’t go in these rigs. But we’ll hurry home and put on our own frocks; then we’ll come back here for you, and we’ll all go hatting.”

“Very well; don’t be long.”

“No, sir; we’ll be back in half an hour.”

And so they were.

VII

THE GREEN PAPER DOLL

“Oh, Betty, I’m so upset!” exclaimed Dorothy Bates, as she came into the McGuire library one afternoon in early May.

“What’s the matter, Dotty?” asked Betty. “The party isn’t off, is it?”

“No; we’re to go, all right; but Jeanette can’t go. She has such a cold, her mother won’t let her go away from home. And I’ve just come from there. She really is ill; isn’t it too bad?”

“Yes, indeed it is! We would have had such a lovely time, all together.”

“Well, we’ll go, anyhow. And, Betty, as Irene expects three of us, I think it would be nice to ask some one to go in Jeanette’s place. I’d like to ask Constance Harper, but I know you don’t like her very much.”

“Oh, I like Constance well enough, but she doesn’t like me.”

“Well, whichever way it is, you two never seem to get along very well together. But who else is there?”

Betty hesitated a minute, then she said:

“I’d like to ask Martha Taylor.”

“Martha! Why, Betty, nobody likes Martha. And well – you know Martha, poor girl, has to count every penny, and – and she never seems quite at her ease – not that that’s anything against her, but she wouldn’t have pretty dresses and hats, and the people at Halstead House are often dressy and gay.”

“I know it; but if Martha doesn’t mind that, we needn’t. And, Dorothy, you don’t know Martha as well as I do. She never has any good times, and it’s that that makes her shy and awkward. Oh, do ask her to go with us, if only for my sake.”

“Betty, what a queer girl you are! I like Martha well enough, but I don’t believe she’ll go with us. I’ll ask her, though, as you’re so set upon it.”

“What’s this enthusiastic discussion all about?” asked Mrs. McGuire, pausing at the library door, as she was passing through the hall.

“Oh, Mother, come in!” cried Betty. “What do you think? Jeanette is quite ill and she can’t go with us to the house-party at Irene Halstead’s.”

“That is too bad; I’m very sorry. Shall you ask any one in her place, Dorothy?”

“That’s just what we’re talking about, Mrs. McGuire. Betty thinks it would be nice to ask Martha Taylor, but I don’t think she quite fits in.”

“But think how she’d enjoy it! Martha almost never gets invited to a lovely outing like this one you have in prospect. Why, she’d be overjoyed to go.”

“Yes’m, I s’pose she would,” admitted Dorothy; “but she’s – she’s so bashful, you know.”

“That’s mostly because you girls slight her. Now you’ve a fine opportunity to give her a pleasure, do it, and do it heartily and kindly. Let her feel that you really want her to go with you.”

“Yes, do,” said Betty; “and, truly, Dot, if you ask her as if you wanted her, and if you treat her cordially, you’ll be surprised to see how gay and jolly Martha will be.”

“All right,” said Dorothy, agreeably; “I really do like her, and I’ll do my best. Come on, Betty, let’s go and ask her now.”

Betty whisked away, and returned in a few minutes with her hat on, ready to start. It was but a short walk through the bright May sunshine to Martha’s house, and they found her in the garden, watering some flower seeds she had just planted.

“Hello, Martha!” called the two girls, and she came running to meet them.

“Come, sit on the veranda,” she said; “it’s so pleasant there. I’m glad you came to see me.”

“We’ve come to invite you to a party,” said Dorothy, plunging into the subject at once.

“A party!” exclaimed Martha. “Where?”

“Oh, Martha,” cried Betty, “it’s more than a party – it’s a house-party! At a lovely country place, – Dorothy’s cousin’s, – and we’re to stay from Wednesday till Saturday! Isn’t that grand?”

It was so grand that Martha could scarcely realize it.