Title: The House of Delight
Author: Warner, Gertrude Chandler
Language: English
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THE HOUSE OF DELIGHT


[Illustration: “WILL YOU HAVE ALICE-BLUE SUITS TRIMMED WITH WHITE
BRAID?”]


THE HOUSE OF DELIGHT

by

GERTRUDE CHANDLER WARNER

With illustrations arranged by the author and photographed by

John A. Carpenter Warner


[Illustration]

The Pilgrim Press
Boston      New York      Chicago

Copyright 1916
By Gertrude C. Warner

The Pilgrim Press
Boston



        THIS LITTLE BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO MY GRANDFATHER

                           John A. Carpenter

                       WHO WAS MY “BEST” PLAYMATE

------------------------------------------------------------------------



                                CONTENTS


                  CHAPTER                        PAGE
                        I THE NEW HOUSE             3

                       II AT THE SEASHORE          24

                      III MR. DELIGHT’S SURPRISE   45

                       IV THE PICNIC               64

                        V THE CHRISTMAS TREE       83



                          PERSONS IN THE BOOK


[Illustration:

  BETSEY, a real little girl, who takes the parts of

  MADAME BETTINA, the French dressmaker

  MR. BETTS, the carpenter, and

  DR. BETSON, the family physician]

[Illustration:

  WILLIAM DELIGHT, a bisque doll, just as long as Betsey’s hand]

[Illustration:

  EDITH DELIGHT, his wife, a five-inch bisque doll]

[Illustration:

  DINAH MCGINTY, the colored cook, a rag doll]

[Illustration:

  DUMPLING DELIGHT, the china dog]

[Illustration:

  PRUDENCE DARLING, Edith Delight’s married sister]

[Illustration:

  JOHN DARLING, Prudence’s husband]

             MR. and MRS. AVERY Betsey’s Father and Mother
             TOM AVERY                    Betsey’s Brother
             MARGARET AVERY                Betsey’s Cousin
             DR. LAWRENCE                  Betsey’s Doctor
             NORAH                  Betsey’s Mother’s Cook



                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


 “WILL YOU HAVE ALICE-BLUE SUITS?”                       _Frontispiece_

                          PERSONS IN THE BOOK

 “WILL YOU HAVE A BREADED CHOP, MY DEAR?”                             4

 “THAT IS QUITE SATISFACTORY TO ME”                                  14

 SHE ALWAYS STOOD MR. DELIGHT UP IN HIS SHIRT-SLEEVES                22

 SOON MR. DELIGHT CAME STRIDING BACK                                 34

 “REMEMBER DE FISH, MR. JOHN”                                        38

 “DON’T STIR UP THE WATER SO MUCH DOWN THERE”                        42

 SO MRS. DELIGHT WENT DOWN IN GREAT ASTONISHMENT                     62

 “HE SURE DO LOOK MIGHTY STYLISH A-DRIVING DAT KERRIDGE”             68

 “TAKE UP A SANDWICH, MRS. D. AND LOOK PLEASANT!”                    76

 HE LEFT A PRINT OF EACH TINY FOOTSTEP                               90

 “DINNER AM SERVED, SAH”                                             96



                                PREFACE


Betsey was a curly-headed little girl, nine years old, who played with
her dolls in the most interesting way you ever saw. Little Mrs. Delight,
with her soft brown hair and beautiful brown eyes, was Betsey’s very
dearest doll, and she played most of the time with her, and her charming
little husband, Mr. Delight. But Betsey’s sister Anne, who was away at
school and who was much too old to play with dolls any more, had given
Mr. and Mrs. Darling to Betsey, for it did seem too bad to keep them
packed away in their dark, stuffy box.

Now, Betsey didn’t call herself the dolls’ mother, for they were all
grown up, and much older than she was already. And they seemed to need a
new chair or a new bed so very often, that a carpenter was necessary
most of the time. So whenever Mr. Delight wished to order new furniture,
Betsey called herself Mr. Betts, and talked exactly like a carpenter.
When Mrs. Delight needed new dresses or new curtains, Betsey called
herself Madame Bettina, and talked as nearly as she could like Mother’s
French dressmaker. And when any of the dolls were sick, Betsey at once
took the part of old Dr. Betson, and talked gruffly with them about
tonics and pills.

She talked for each of the dolls, too, and if you had listened in the
next room, you would have said that at least three or four people were
talking.

Betsey really was such a very skilful little carpenter and seamstress,
that you will find only five pieces of furniture in the pictures that
she did not make all alone by herself. See if you can find the five
things. She even made Dinah, the colored cook.

Betsey always liked School-time, and Bed-time. And she was a very good
little girl about Errand-time and Dusting-time,—considering everything.
But, do you know, I really think that most of her best lessons in
patience and neatness were learned in Play-time!



                          THE HOUSE OF DELIGHT



                               Chapter I
                             THE NEW HOUSE


Mother paused on her way past the playroom door, and listened. She knew
Betsey did not have company, and yet there was a sound of three
voices,—first a pleasant deep, bass voice, and then a pleasant silvery
little voice, and then a pleasant low bark. Mother pushed open the door
very softly and looked in.

There lay Betsey on the great fur rug, with her curly head propped up on
her hand. Before her stood the low, broad Morris chair, divided into two
rooms. Mother knew it must be a bedroom at the back, on account of the
funny bed made of a box-cover, and covered with a gay patchwork quilt,
Betsey’s very first piece of sewing. And nobody could possibly mistake
the dining-room in front, with its large red pasteboard table, and
little Mrs. Delight at one end, and her cute little husband at the
other. Black Dinah stood by the table, smiling as usual, ready to serve
a large platter of salad, and Dumpling Delight barked gruffly once in a
while, because there were so many tantalizing smells in the air.

“Will you have a breaded chop, my dear?” asked Mr. Delight.

“Yes, thank you, William. Will you have some of the creamed oysters?”

“And some of dis yeah lobster salad?” inquired Dinah.

[Illustration: “WILL YOU HAVE A BREADED CHOP, MY DEAR?”]

(“Mercy,” thought Mother, behind the door, “what a dinner!”)

“I’ll tell you what _I_ wish,” said Mr. Delight with a deep cough, “I
wish we could invite your sister Prudence and her husband to spend a
week with us.”

“Where in name hebben would you put comp’ny, now, Massa Willyum? I ask
you dat,” demanded Dinah.

“Yes, William!” echoed Mrs. Delight. “This house is certainly a tight
fit for three, and with two extra ones!”

“I wish I could afford a larger house,” said Mr. Delight in a worried
tone.

“My dear husband!” exclaimed Mrs. Delight. Betsey had to sit up straight
on the rug and take Mrs. Delight around the table to kiss her husband
affectionately. “I didn’t mean a word I said, William; I really didn’t.”

“There, there, my dear, I know you didn’t,” replied Mr. Delight
soothingly.

But Mother suspected that Mr. Delight was worried just the same, so she
softly pulled the door together and tiptoed away to the telephone. She
smiled to herself as she called up the carpenter-shop.

“I want you to make my daughter Betsey a doll-house, Mr. Jones,” she
said. “Just like the one you made for your little girl,—that had four
rooms and six windows, and a big door between the rooms. And _can_ you
get it done for Betsey’s birthday? In four days?”

“I will get it done, paint and all,” promised Mr. Jones. And he did.

On the morning of her ninth birthday, Betsey came smiling to breakfast,
expecting to see a pile of dainty white parcels at her plate.

“Your birthday present is up in the playroom, Betsey dear,” said Mother
with a kiss.

“I’m afraid she won’t like it,” said Father.

Now, whenever Father said that,—“I’m afraid she won’t like it,”—Betsey’s
present was sure to be very large and wonderful. Once it had been her
shiny bicycle, once her new blue playroom, and once her darling black
pony. So Betsey finished her breakfast in great excitement, hurried
upstairs to the playroom and pushed open the door. And there it stood in
the center of the room,—the dear little house, painted snow-white inside
and pale green outside,—with four rooms and six windows and tiny
window-sashes, and the cunningest threshold!

Betsey rushed over to the dainty little cottage, put her head in the
little dining-room and looked through the double doors into the
drawing-room. “Just to see how it would seem to live here,” she thought.
And then her eyes fell on a square white card dangling from one of the
little window-sashes.

“THE HOUSE OF DELIGHT” said the card. “To Betsey, from Father and
Mother.”

“I’ll say thank you before I begin to play,” decided Betsey, tossing
back her curls and clattering down-stairs at a great rate.

“Here’s that child!” exclaimed Father. “I was _afraid_ she wouldn’t like
it!”

“O but she does!” shouted Betsey, whirling around in the middle of the
room. “Mr. Delight has wanted to move for the longest while!”

“What do you say, Mother,” said Father with a twinkle, “if we excuse
Betsey today from doing any hard work?”

“Betsey can simply make her bed,” agreed Mother.

So Betsey whisked the white covers over her little brass bed as smoothly
as she could (with a perfectly new doll-house waiting), and hurried back
to the House of Delight.

Little Mr. Delight was sitting in his law office behind the radiator.
Betsey picked him up, put on his gray derby hat, and walked him rapidly
across the room to the Morris chair.

“Edith, O Edith!” he cried excitedly. “My salary has been raised to a
million dollars a year! Now we can move into a new house!”

“How perfectly lovely!” cried Mrs. Delight. “Can’t we buy one directly?”

“We certainly can, my dear,” replied Mr. Delight. “We will go down right
away and see Mr. Betts, the carpenter, and see what houses he has on
hand for sale.”

Betsey slipped off the excited little gentleman’s business coat and put
on his black one with the long tails, thrust his cane under his arm, and
propped him up against the chair-back to wait for Mrs. Delight, who was
much slower in dressing. Betsey selected a white silk blouse and
tailored skirt for Mrs. Delight, and opened her gay Japanese parasol.
Then, while the happy dolls were taking the trolley ride to Mr. Betts’
carpenter-shop—(really standing stiffly all the time against the
chair-back)—Betsey hustled the untidy shop into order. Then she drew
the table over to the window, settled her fat tube of paste, her bottle
of glue, her scissors and scraps of satin on it, and sat down before it,
very importantly, as Mr. Betts, the carpenter. And what a smiling
carpenter she was!

“Good day, Mr. Betts,” said Mr. Delight (quite out of breath with the
stairs), “we want to buy a new house.”

“What kind of a house?” asked Mr. Betts thoughtfully, setting his little
customers up against a pile of books.

“A moderately large house, Mr. Betts,” replied Mr. Delight, “that is
well-built,—for myself, my wife, and a colored cook.”

“Aha!” exclaimed Mr. Betts. “I have the very house!”

“Shall we take a look at it, my dear?” said Mr. Delight, offering his
arm to his wife. And presently they stood in Mr. Betts’ brand new house,
that was painted snow-white inside and pale green outside, that was
well-built and just right for three people.

“O what a lovely house!” exclaimed Mrs. Delight.

“How much is it?” asked Mr. Delight, taking out his check-book.

“It is $15,000, but it is _very_ well-built and—”

“That is quite satisfactory to me, Mr. Betts,” said Mr. Delight, calmly
writing his check for $15,000.

“And you can supply us with furniture, I suppose?” asked Mr. Delight,
passing the check to the obliging carpenter.

“Everything from a rocking-chair to a telephone,” said Mr. Betts
happily.

“Betsey!” called Mother’s voice.

“Here is a present from Aunty, for your birthday,” said Mother when
Betsey opened the door.

Betsey sat right down on the stairs, smoothed out the long, pink ribbon
carefully (for she was sure to need it when she became Madame Bettina,
the French dressmaker), and shook out her present. It was a tiny
sideboard with shelves for Mrs. Delight’s china, with fascinating doors
that opened and shut, each set with a little silver-colored knob.

“O for my new house!” cried Betsey. “Isn’t it the luckiest thing,
Mother, for I’m afraid Mr. Betts doesn’t keep sideboards!”

Mother laughed and waved her hand at the happy little figure.

“Now, as long as the house is decided upon,” said Mr. Betts cheerfully,
taking one of the little millionaires in each hand, and sitting down at
his work-table, “I suppose the next thing is furniture.”

[Illustration: “THAT IS QUITE SATISFACTORY TO ME, MR. BETTS,” SAID MR.
DELIGHT.]

“We want everything,” declared Mr. Delight recklessly. “We want a piano,
and a window-seat, and a sideboard—”

“I have a sideboard that came in this morning,” interrupted Mr. Betts,
rolling it out directly.

“O isn’t it sweet?” said Mrs. Delight, clasping her hands. “Dinah and I
will paper the shelves with that scalloped paper that comes on purpose.
Think of it, William, full of our wedding china!”

“Betsey! O Betsey!” called Tom, plunging up the stairs. “See what I’ve
got.”

Betsey turned around and examined with interest a piece of gilt molding
about six inches long that Tom held out.

“See, lay it on this side, and presto! it’s a sofa! You can have it.”

“O Tom, how kind of you! I’ll make a huckaback pillow for it,—pink and
green. It will be too dear for anything!”

“Hum,” thought Tom on his way down-stairs. “I didn’t think she’d be so
awfully pleased with a little thing like that. Maybe I could saw her out
a little chair on my jig-saw—I wonder?”

And in a few minutes there was a strange, buzzing sound down cellar,
that kept time to the hum of Madame Bettina’s tiny sewing-machine
upstairs. For it was Madame Bettina that had to make the sheets and
pillow-cases and net curtains, and all the things which are hardly in a
carpenter’s line.

“How _can_ I make a telephone?” puzzled Betsey. And she gazed
thoughtfully at her box of beads.

“Aha!” exclaimed Mr. Betts suddenly, taking two large silver beads from
his box.

“Ho-ho!” he laughed, rummaging excitedly in the closet where he kept his
smooth pieces of kindling wood.

“Yes, Mr. Delight,” he remarked calmly, “I will personally see to it
that the telephone is put in the very first thing, so you won’t lose an
important call.” He began to paint a small piece of wood a rich, deep
brown, with water colors.

“Another small piece of wood for a battery box,” murmured Betsey,
whanging away at an obstinate nail. “The two silver beads for bells, a
two-pointed tack to hold the receiver—a green cord—a roll of black paper
stuck into a black bead for a receiver—. Now, what on earth for a
speaking tube?”

Speaking of tubes! Mr. Betts triumphantly took the cap from his tube of
paste, and with one resounding rap of his hammer, nailed it securely in
the exact center of the new telephone!

“Hullo, up there!” called a deep voice at the foot of the stairs.

“Come up, come up!” called Betsey, running to open the door for her
father. “See the telephone.”

“Well, quite a telephone, indeed!” said Father admiringly. “Now, what
can you do with this?” He laid a polished wooden stamp-box in her hand.

Betsey thought a moment. “A clock. Glue the cover down, paint a lace,
stick on a pendulum—”

“And hang it on the wall!” finished Father. And he smiled over his
shoulder to see Betsey change so suddenly into Mr. Betts, who must
somehow sell to Mr. Delight a Grandfather’s clock,—solid oak, keeping
perfect time, and extremely reasonable in price.

“Do you want to live in your new house at once, or wait until everything
is done?” asked Mr. Betts.

“O live there at once, William!” pleaded Mrs. Delight. “I am just crazy
to hang the curtains!”

“O.K.,” said Mr. Delight. “You get Dinah to come over to help you, and I
will superintend Mr. Betts and his moving men.”

Soon the tiny drawing-room was in great confusion. Dinah and her
mistress sat among great piles of net and lace, running the dainty
curtains on their poles, tying them back with wide rose-colored ribbons,
and getting up and down on the step-ladder to arrange the folds.
Suddenly, as Betsey swung Mrs. Delight gently from the little ladder, a
tiny elastic between Mrs. Delight’s arms snapped, and down fell her
round right arm on the soft new carpet!

“Massa Willyum!” shrieked Dinah. “Miss Edith done broke her arm
a-falling off dis yeah step-ladder! Telephone for de doctor, wid de new
telephone!”

Mr. Delight rushed distractedly to the telephone. “Dr. Betson, please
come _immediately_! Yes, my wife has broken her arm. It’s very serious
indeed!”

“I will come just as soon as my motor can get there,” replied Dr.
Betson.

Dinah was wringing her hands and crying when Mr. Delight hurried into
the drawing-room.

“Don’t feel so badly, Dinah,” said Mrs. Delight bravely. “Dr. Betson is
the best surgeon in the world.” And as she smiled a little, Dr. Betson
rang the bell violently.

“Well, well!” he said heartily, kneeling down to examine the break.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Delight, because I can fix this arm in a trice! Just
spread a few blankets on the floor for a comfortable bed and I’ll go to
work.”

Betsey pulled a piece of new elastic (kept for just this purpose) out of
her work-box, threaded Mrs. Delight’s arms on, and tied them tight. And
then to make her work look quite professional, she bandaged the right
arm beautifully with cheese cloth.

“Is it possible the arm is set?” asked Mrs. Delight as the doctor put up
his instruments (a ribbon-runner and a pair of blunt scissors).

“All done, Madam,” declared Dr. Betson. “This is a very fortunate kind
of break. Now that it is properly set, you do not even need to be
careful. I would suggest that you take a good rest, however.”

[Illustration: “SHE ALWAYS STOOD MR. DELIGHT UP IN HIS SHIRT-SLEEVES, TO
SUPERINTEND THINGS IN GENERAL”]

“Indeed she will!” agreed Mr. Delight shaking hands with the gruff
doctor. He was still quite pale. “Now, as soon as I can move Mrs.
Delights bed up to her room, we will all go to bed, for we are very much
exhausted with moving.”

Betsey carefully slipped on Mrs. Delight’s long, lacy night-dress, and
tucked her in gently, and soon she was asleep.

And soon Mr. Delight left Dumpling asleep, and tiptoed up to bed, and
soon _he_ was asleep. As for Dinah, she was asleep in two minutes. So
the tall, shiny clock on the wall ticked through the night alone, for
Betsey crept happily into her own white bed, and fell asleep herself,
for she had worked hardest of all!



                               Chapter II
                            AT THE SEASHORE


“What are you making, Betsey?” asked Tom, one hot July day.

“A cottage,” said Betsey.

“Whew! There’s nothing small about you! What do you want of a cottage
when you’ve got a new doll-house?”

“Mrs. Delight has to have a summer home, hasn’t she?” answered Betsey
with dignity. “O Tom, dear! _Could_ I borrow your train of cars? The
Delights want to go to the seashore.”

“You can _have_ it. I don’t want it any more.”

“O thank you, Tom. I don’t suppose you’d want to lend that little
suit-case—that Uncle John gave you full of candy, would you?”

“That,” said Tom, solemnly making a great bow, “you may have, too. What
do _I_ want of a _doll’s_ suit-case?”

“You’re an old dear,” said Betsey affectionately. “Now let me think what
else I need to make before the families can start for the beach.” She
cut a large window in her pasteboard cottage as she spoke.

“How many families are going?” inquired Tom politely.

“Two,” said Betsey, carefully marking her window-sashes. “Mr. and Mrs.
Delight, and Dinah and Dumpling, for one family, and Mr. and Mrs.
Darling for the other. Try to think, Tom, what I ought to make.”

“Are your families going swimming?” asked Tom.

“O yes, indeed, every day.”

“Then I suggest that you make bathing-suits.”

“Of course! How stupid of me! Here I am, planning too much about trains
and cottages, and not at all about clothes!”

And Tom went down-stairs, just as Mr. Betts, the carpenter, finished his
cottage, and changed into Madame Bettina, the French dressmaker.

“O Madame Bettina!” said Mrs. Delight all out of breath. “We want some
bathing-suits made. We’re going to the seashore!”

“That is ver’ good,” said Betsey, with Madame Bettina’s French accent
(just as Mother’s dressmaker talked). “Will you have Alice-blue suits
trimmed with white braid, with charming bath caps to match?”

“That sounds very pretty,” agreed Mrs. Delight. “My sister doesn’t know
yet that she’s going, so hers is a great surprise. Make hers blue and
mine black, so we can tell them apart, and Dinah must have one too.”

“I shall send them tonight, surely,” said Madame Bettina, getting to
work in good earnest, for it is not every dressmaker that can make five
bathing-suits in one day. She cut here and snipped there, and ran her
machine at a great rate.

“Betsey!” called Mother above all the noise. “Come to the head of the
stairs a minute.”

Betsey stopped her noise obediently and opened the door.

“Tom and I are going to Boston at ten o’clock. Norah will take care of
you. And you can ask Mary to come over to play this afternoon, if you
want to.”

“I don’t need Mary, Mother!” cried Betsey laughing. “You see with Mrs.
Delight’s company I have my hands full already.”

“Very well,” said Mother laughing too. “Now what do you want me to bring
you? I’m going to take your gold thimble in to be straightened where the
chair rocked on it.” She held up the tiny blue box.

“O Mother _dear_! If you’ll only take the thimble in something else, and
give me that thimble box, you don’t have to bring me one thing.”

“What do you want it for?” asked Mother in a puzzled tone.

“A camera. It’s _just_ the size. I’ll cover it with black oilcloth and
make a little, black carrying case just to fit, and Mrs. Delight can
take it to the beach.”

“Here is your camera, then,” laughed Mother, tossing it up the stairs
into Betsey’s two hands.

“Good-bye, Mother,” sang Betsey, bustling back into the playroom.
“Ding-ling! Hello! Give me three-five-one, please.” (This in Mr.
Delight’s pleasant deep voice.)

“Hello, Mr. Betts. Can you make me a camera to take with me to the
beach?”

“I can, sir. I will send it up with the suit-case, and bag, and
fish-pole.” And Mr. Betts hastily got out his glue and heavy paper and
thin sticks of wood, and soon finished a gentleman’s hand-bag, lettered
“J. D.” (for John Darling), a tiny black camera, and a long, slender
fish-pole.

“There!” said Betsey to nobody in particular. “_Here_ is where the beach
will be.” (Setting up the new cottage.) “Here is the station.” (Setting
up the train of cars.) “And here are all the new things to be
delivered.”

She packed them into a tiny express cart drawn by a brown horse, took a
last look at the room to see that everything was ready, and went down to
dinner.

“Norah,” she said, settling herself at the table all alone in the big
dining-room, “I’m going to be very busy all the afternoon.”

“Are ye, me darlint!” said Norah with a smile. “And do you want anything
of me?”

Betsey hesitated. “No, I guess not—unless you could find me a big
shingle. Do you think you could?”

“A big shingle! I’m thinking there’s a cellar full! I’ll give ye two for
a kiss!”

But as it turned out, Betsey gave two kisses to kind Norah for one
shingle, and hurried back to her playroom, calling back over her
shoulder, “I want the shingle for a wharf!”

“A wharf,” chuckled Norah to herself. “Bless the dear child! She has a
regular little town up in her room, with her houses, and her cars, and
her seashores!”

Betsey stopped in her mother’s room and looked hard at the washstand.
“Yes, I’ll be very careful,” she said to nobody in particular, and
lifted the pitcher out, and poured the white pond-lily bowl nearly full
of water. “It’s lovely and cold!” she giggled. “How Mr. Delight will
yell!”

Carefully she lifted the basin, and slowly she walked to the back hall.
“However am I going to open the door?” puzzled Betsey. But she got no
farther, for one of her wrists let down suddenly, and splash! went a
great shower of water over the floor, and began running in all
directions.

“I should have called Norah,” said Betsey. But she did not sit down and
watch the water creep down-stairs. She seized a dry mop, and dried the
floor very deftly.

“I’m glad I didn’t break the bowl,” she thought as she squeezed the dry
mop (which was now quite a wet one) out of the window. “It’s lucky the
back hall isn’t carpeted.” And she started out again.

This time she reached the playroom safely, set the “ocean” on the table
by the beach, and knelt down before the big house to help Mrs. Delight
ring her shiny telephone.

“Hello, Prudence. What do you say if we go to the seashore?”

“Why, you take my breath away! John and I haven’t any bathing-suits.”

“But suppose William and I see to that?”

“Well, we haven’t hired a cottage.”

“But suppose we see to that, too?”

“Then we’ll go! Shall we meet you at the station?”

“Meet us at ten, sharp!”

With these words Betsey took Mrs. Delight from the telephone, put on her
prettiest white suit and her hat trimmed with the blue-jay feather that
she had found in the yard. She tied a wide blue ribbon to Dumpling’s
collar, put on Mr. Delight’s gray derby, and packed the suit-case
neatly. Then she hustled the whole crowd to the station, taking three
dolls in one hand and two dolls and a dog in the other. As the little
ladies were kissing each other delightedly, Betsey gave a shrill whistle
and rushed the big, noisy engine swiftly along the track, and brought it
slowly to a standstill. Then she gave several hard puffs (the way an
engine does, you know).

[Illustration: “SOON MR. DELIGHT CAME STRIDING BACK”]

“Woof! Woof!” said Dumpling.

“O here’s a dog,” said the porter, catching hold of Dumpling’s blue
ribbon. “No dogs allowed in de Pullman, sah.”

“Dis yeah dog is!” said Dinah, forgetting herself.

“No, miss; all dogs hab to ride in de baggage car.”

“My dear Edith,” said Mr. Delight calmly, “I’ll go and see my friend,
the President of the Railroad, and see what can be done.”

“De train will go off and leave you, sah!” cried the distressed porter.

“No it won’t, William!” shouted Mr. Darling. “I’m going to stand right
here with my bag, directly on the track, and the engineer won’t dare to
run over me.” And Betsey stood Mr. Darling up, right under the nose of
the steaming engine.

Soon Mr. Delight came striding back. “It’s all right,” he called. “The
President’s Special will be hitched on directly. Here it comes down the
track now.”

Betsey had the biggest passenger car behind her all the time. In fact it
was the only car all the little people could get into all at once, and
now she pushed it down the track at a great rate and bumped it into the
train with a bang quite like a real passenger car.

“It is a shame that it will be too late to bathe when we get there,”
said Mrs. Delight, as Betsey arranged them all in the tiny green velvet
seats.

“It won’t,” corrected Mr. Darling. “Eleven o’clock is the fashionable
hour to bathe. The minute I get there I shall put on my bathing-suit.
And, Dinah, I shall get enough fish for dinner off the wharf before I
touch the water.”

“Better not promise, Mr. John. What if de fishes don’t bite?”

“I promise,” said Mr. Darling more firmly, “that I won’t go into the
water until I get enough fish for dinner.”

Here Betsey slowed up the train, and called out in a conductor’s loud
voice, “Beachwood! Beachwood!”

“Here we are,” cried Mr. Delight. “What a lovely cottage!”

But Betsey couldn’t wait for them all to exclaim over the new cottage,
having four grown-up people to dress in new bathing-suits, so she began
directly with Mr. Delight. She put on his cunning blue bath-robe over
his bathing-suit and tied the tiny cord carefully, because Mr. Delight
was cold-blooded, like Father. Mrs. Delight had a round rubber cap (not
really rubber, though), and Betsey tied Mrs. Darling’s hair up in a
white silk bandana with a funny knot in front, like Cousin Margaret’s.
As for Mr. Darling, he had a scarlet suit, just the color of a boiled
lobster. And Betsey slung the fish-pole over his shoulder, and gave the
new camera to Mrs. Darling.

[Illustration: “REMEMBER DE FISH, MR. JOHN,” CALLED DINAH]

“Remember de fish, Mister John,” called Dinah. “Nebber tech de water
twell you catches enough fo’ dinner!”

“I’ll bring you the fish, sure!” promised Mr. Darling.

“Here’s the wharf,” said Betsey, putting the big shingle across the
bowl. “Mr. Darling can fish while the others try the water.”

“You know the best way to go in, Prudence, I suppose?” said Betsey for
Mrs. Delight, settling herself before the table that held the ocean.

“Yes, you wet your forehead first, like this,” said Mrs. Darling, “and
then you just plunge in all over like this! O-o-eee!” And Betsey laughed
and sputtered just as everyone does at the seashore, giving a monstrous
shout for Mr. Delight when he went in.

“Don’t stir up the water so much down there!” called Mr. Darling from
the wharf. “Scared away a big cod, then.”

“I wonder if I could make Mr. Delight swim,” thought Betsey. She bent
out his tiny arms and lowered him into the water and tried to make him
strike out. But she forgot that she had very carelessly left Mrs.
Darling standing in the water, and Mr. Delight was so very awkward and
made such a huge wave, that the water in the small ocean struck her full
in the face and over she went.

“O her hair! her hair!” cried Betsey in distress, plunging her hand in
after the poor little lady. She hastily dried her in a big towel, and
took off the little silk cap to see what damage was done. “It isn’t so
bad,” she decided, feeling of the yellow braid. “The silk made very good
rubber. Now Mr. Darling can go in.”

And she plunged him in all over. The other dolls were greatly surprised.
“We didn’t know you had caught a fish,” they said.

“Go and look in my fish basket,” said Mr. Darling.

And when they looked in the basket they found two tiny paper blue-fish
that Betsey had secretly cut out and hidden there.

“We must take them to Dinah to cook. I am starved,” said Mrs. Delight,
climbing out.

Betsey had just about time enough to get the family dry and dressed when
Dinah called them to dinner. “It will be all right if Mrs. Darling’s
hair _is_ down to dry,” decided Betsey. “Cousin Margaret has to dry
hers.” And she set them around the table.

“I didn’t know blue-fish grew here,” said Mrs. Delight.

“Pshaw! Don’t let him fool you, honey,” said Dinah scornfully. “I seed
him out on de wharf wid de fish man when you-all was busy in de water.”

“He didn’t catch them at all, then,” said Mrs. Delight.

“No,” said Mr. Darling. “But you know I said I’d _get_ the fish; I
didn’t promise to catch them.”

And Betsey had to laugh herself to see them laugh. And as she laughed
she heard a familiar voice call, “Betsey, dear!”

[Illustration: “DON’T STIR UP THE WATER SO MUCH DOWN THERE,” CALLED MR.
DARLING]

“Why, mother can’t be home,” she cried.

But she opened the door and it surely was Mother who stood on the
landing with her arms out ready for her busy little daughter.

“You may come down and look in my bag,” she said, kissing Betsey.

And when the black bag was opened, Betsey found two tiny boxes for her.

“I know when they’re tiny, they are for Mrs. Delight,” she giggled, as
she unwrapped the tissue papers. Inside she found a beautiful little
gilt cuckoo-clock with a tiny bird who really said “cuckoo” when you
pulled a cord,—and two smooth, silver-framed mirrors.

“Those mirrors,” said Betsey, almost too pleased to speak, “mean that
Mrs. Delight will have to have a new bureau.”

But it really turned out to mean a great deal more,—which is another
story!



                              Chapter III
                         MR. DELIGHT’S SURPRISE


“Where is my happy, sunny, good-tempered, busy little daughter Betsey?”
asked Mother playfully, one morning.

“She’s ’way inside of me,” said Betsey, dolefully. “So far I can’t find
her.”

“What drove her in?” inquired Mother, tossing away her duster and
sitting down on the couch.

“I think Mary’s going away to the country drove her in,” replied Betsey,
slowly. “She’s going tomorrow and stay five weeks!”

“Why-e-e!” exclaimed Mother. “If here isn’t a tear! A great, big, round,
wet tear! Whatever shall we do?”

Betsey laughed a little, and wiped her eyes with Mother’s soft
handkerchief. “But you see I won’t have anyone to play with,” she said,
“and I shall be lonesome.”

“What about Mary?” suggested Mother. “Don’t you think she’ll be lonesome
too? Now I think this would be a good plan,—the very first moment you
begin to miss Mary, just begin to make something nice to send her.”

“O I think so, too!” cried Betsey.

“Now I see somebody coming back,” declared Mother. “It’s my happy,
sunny, good-temp—”

But Betsey began kissing Mother so hard that it was impossible for her
to finish.

About a week after this, Mr. Betts sat in his shop making an automobile.
He had made the biggest part out of a candy box, had covered it smoothly
with black oilcloth, and had fastened a fascinating number on the
rear,—the very number that was on Father’s own car. But Mr. Betts was
having rather a hard time with the head-lights. He was almost on the
verge of getting out of patience with the machine, when luckily the mail
came. And there was a little letter from Mary.

  “Dear, darling Betsey (it said),

  I miss you dreadfully. I play every minute with Mr. and Mrs.
  Merrill, and I have made a lovely summer house for them right on the
  bank of the really, truly brook. So they go bathing every day. I
  wish Edith could make Leslie a visit. Wouldn’t it be great?”

Betsey read the letter through twice. When she came the second time to
the sentence, “I wish Edith could make Leslie a visit,” an idea so
exciting and pleasant came to her that she laughed and danced a little
hornpipe around the room.

“I’ll _send_ her! I’ll put her in a box!” she declared to nobody in
particular. “I’ll pack her clothes in a box, and put her in the center
so she won’t break, and then I’ll write what every dress is for!” And
Betsey dashed down-stairs with the letter to consult with Mother.

Mother liked the exciting idea. She even stopped rolling out pink sugar
jumbles to find a large shoe-box for Betsey, and some heavy paper and
cord. And then what fun it was selecting costumes to send with Mrs.
Delight! For this was really going away, not just Make-Believe, although
Make-Believe does very well, when one hasn’t a real friend in the
country.

Betsey first packed Mrs. Delight’s satin and chiffon evening dresses,
her opera cloak, and her outing clothes; her dainty muslins and her
frilly night-dress and her pink kimono. Then she dressed Mrs. Delight
herself in her green Norfolk suit, settled her in the soft bed, and
packed over her white petticoats by the dozen, a woolen blanket for cold
nights, sofa pillows, and hats. Then she wrote a letter to Mary saying
that Mrs. Delight could stay a week, and mailed them together.

Now, to tell the truth, Betsey had been thinking all this time of how
pleased Mary would be, and she hadn’t yet thought how lonesome she would
be, or how _extremely_ lonesome poor little Mr. Delight would be! And
when at last Mr. Betts came back to finish his automobile, it began to
dawn on him how quiet his shop was. He laid down the little wheel and
looked over at poor Mr. Delight lying on the dining-room floor. And then
the dignified carpenter changed suddenly into a very disconsolate little
girl. Just at this minute, Betsey was very sorry she had sent Mrs.
Delight away.

She ran her fingers through her yellow curls and began to think. She
thought how sad and lonesome Father had been the year Mother had taken
Betsey and Tom on the big ship to England, and how the house looked when
they came home again. Not that it was untidy, O no! There was the new
piazza, and the grand new music room, and Betsey’s own room done over in
soft rose-color and white. And another such brilliant idea popped into
Betsey’s head that she laughed aloud.

Mother heard the laugh down in the pantry and smiled, and Norah heard it
in the kitchen and grinned broadly. And Joe, the gardener, heard it out
in the stables, and laughed too.

“I’ll let Mr. Delight get up a surprise! I can make Mrs. Delight her new
bureau with my new mirror, and he can order two new bedrooms and a
bathroom, if the old bookcase is anywhere near the right size!”

Here Betsey jumped up and ran for the old bookcase as fast as she could
go. It was a funny bookcase. Father had “knocked it together” once, in a
great hurry. The two shelves did not reach the back of the bookcase at
all, which left a space for the books to fall backward in the most
bothersome way. But it was lucky for Betsey that Father had left this
space, or there would have been no doors between Mr. Delight’s new
bedrooms. Betsey laid the bookcase on its side and measured it.

“Did you ever!” she cried. It measured exactly the same as the
doll-house.

“So you wish to surprise your wife?” said Mr. Betts, cheerfully rubbing
his hands as if nothing had happened. He set Mr. Delight comfortably in
a little chair on the table.

“I do,” replied Mr. Delight. “We would like to have company, and really
need a guest room.”

“The first thing, then,” proceeded Mr. Betts, “is to select wall-paper
and clap it on.”

“And for clapping it on,” said Betsey, giggling, “I will need paste.”
She skipped down-stairs to see what Mother would think about making
paste on baking day. And she had a feeling besides that the pink sugar
jumbles _might_ be done.

The jumbles were done, but Mother was nowhere to be seen. “A caller,”
said Norah.

Now, if Norah hadn’t been cross, she would have said, “A caller, me
darlint,” and Betsey knew it. She took a delicate bite out of a jumble
and began cautiously, “Good deal of cooking going on, isn’t there,
Norah?”

“A big sight of it,” agreed Norah. “But it’s me that is equal to it.”

“Norah,” said Betsey suddenly, “do you happen to know how paperhangers
make their paste?”

“Flour,” said Norah, “stirred in cold water; then hot water till it’s
just right. It’s many the time I’ve made it for me brother Terence.”

“I’m thinking,” said Betsey thoughtfully, “of papering a new room.”

Norah stopped wiping a milk bottle, put her hands on her hips, and
laughed heartily.

“You’re the cute darlint! _Will_ I be after making ye some paste? Yes,
and I will, if the pies never get made!” And kind Norah sifted the flour
and stirred and stirred, until she could hand Betsey a bright tin pail
full of hot paste as smooth as cream. And when she saw the smile on
Betsey’s face, she was thanked enough.

Mr. Betts walked into his shop with his pail, and put on a long-sleeved
blue apron. He selected a long paintbrush, and a can of white paint.

“While my paste cools,” he said, “I will begin the marble floor in the
bathroom.”

“A marble floor!” exclaimed Mr. Delight. “How extremely rich!”

“Betsey, Betsey! What on earth do I smell?” called Tom.

“You smell Mr. Delight’s marble floor,” replied Betsey.

“Hum,” said Tom, gazing at the tiny room fast growing white. “Which will
you have, right or left?”

“O I love to guess,” cried Betsey. “Right!”

“Better guess right _and_ left,” said Tom, holding out both hands. In
one was a white china mustard-boat, and in the other, a half a hollow
rubber ball. “I found them out in the rubbish box, and it struck me that
the mustard-boat would make a good bathtub,” said Tom.

“And the ball will make a set-bowl!” cried Betsey.

“Good,” said Tom admiringly. “I never should have thought of a set-bowl.
Paint the inside white and set it in a square of cardboard.”

“And I’ll paint the pipe that holds it up with silver,” said Betsey,
“and hang one of my new mirrors over it!”

The next day when Betsey was happily doing all these things, the mail
came. Such a fat letter as Mary sent! One sheet was from Mrs. Delight to
her busy little husband, only she didn’t know he was busy, and thought
he must be nearly dead from lonesomeness. And she said at the end of her
tiny letter: “I am so afraid that you are lonesome, I have almost
decided to come right home.”

Betsey instantly rushed for her doll’s paper and envelopes with Mr.
Delight’s tiny monogram on them, and wrote as fast as she could, in Mr.
Delight’s bold hand-writing,

  “My dearest Edith,

  I am not the least bit lonely, and should feel very badly indeed if
  you were to cut your visit short. So don’t come until the week is
  up.

                                               Your devoted husband,
                                                             William.”

Then she read Mary’s letter. “The dolls are just loads of fun,” Mary
wrote. “I have made them a little sleeping-tent beside ours, and they
sleep out doors with me, and you were such an old dear to send Mrs.
Delight. Hasn’t she the loveliest clothes?”

And just at this moment Betsey was very glad indeed that she had sent
Mrs. Delight away. But the letter reminded her that Mrs. Delight would
be away only three days longer, so she fell to work again.

Such a patient little worker was Betsey! She measured the pretty
wall-paper carefully, and pressed out every bubble of paste with a soft
cloth, so that her walls were very workmanlike indeed. She always stood
Mr. Delight up in his shirt-sleeves in the room she was at work in, to
superintend things in general.

Out of a sweet-smelling box that had once held three cakes of soap,
Betsey made Mrs. Delight’s green ruffled bed. Then she drew chickens
with real ink on the pillow-sham of the guest-room bed, and printed
BATH-MAT in bright red, in the center of the dear little rug, to be laid
beside the new tub.

One morning when Betsey was making up the tiny new beds with the fresh
new sheets and embroidered blankets, Tom came up two stairs at a time
with a large shoe-box. “Mrs. Delight arrived on this train!” he cried.

“O don’t undo her yet!” pleaded Betsey in great distress. “The house
isn’t ready for her to see yet.”

So Tom good-naturedly left the box untouched.

Anxious as Betsey was to see her dearest doll again, she kept steadily
at her delightful work arranging furniture, until everything was in
readiness. Then she stood Dinah up in the dining-room with a tiny
pitcher of lemonade, settled Mr. Delight and Dumpling in the new
touring-car, and whizzed them away to the station.

Then she unpacked the shoe-box. “How surprised she will be,” sang
Betsey, as she burrowed for Mrs. Delight. “Oh, oh! What beautiful new
clothes! And Mary made them!” She held up one shimmering dress after
another,—one trimmed with tiny beads, and one with embroidery. “Now Mr.
Delight can be surprised too!”

And at last she came to the pretty little lady herself. Betsey set her
hat straight and stepped her off the train.

“Woof! Woof!” said Dumpling.

“How glad I am,” cried Betsey in Mr. Delight’s deep bass voice.

“O see the new car!” said Mrs. Delight’s silvery voice. And Betsey
laughed as she lifted the little china dog in beside his mistress.

“How cute they look!” she cried, clapping her hands. Then she whizzed
them as fast as she could to the big green house.

“You can go down at once to your room, my dear,” said Mr. Delight.

“You mean _up_,” said Mrs. Delight.

“No, he mean down, honey,” said Dinah with a welcoming grin.

So Mrs. Delight went down-stairs in great astonishment to find the
bright, new rooms. She looked first at her beautiful bed, and then at
the bathroom and the guest chamber.

“O William, this is why you didn’t want me to come home. You are the
very kindest man in all the world!”

[Illustration: “SO MRS. DELIGHT WENT DOWN IN GREAT ASTONISHMENT TO FIND
THE BRIGHT NEW ROOMS”]

And the funniest thing! Although Betsey had done every bit of the work,
and Mr. Delight hadn’t done a single thing, she was not the least bit
jealous when she went down-stairs to dinner!



                               Chapter IV
                               THE PICNIC


“What on earth is Betsey doing with that _pail_?” asked Cousin Margaret
in amazement. She and Mother sat one afternoon in the cool sewing-room
as Betsey passed the door lugging a pail of soapsuds.

“Betsey, what are you up to? Cleaning house?” she called, laughing.

“Just so,” replied Betsey, coming back slowly and setting her steaming
pail on the floor. “You see, Mrs. Delight’s house needs a _thorough_
cleaning all over before company comes, so today Dinah and Mrs. Delight
clean house.”

“You funny child!” said Cousin Margaret, letting her dainty work fall to
the table. “Do you mean to say you really scrub?”

“Scrub!” echoed Betsey, lifting her pail again. “Say, come on up with me
and see!”

Cousin Margaret was very young and very pretty, and she really didn’t
have the slightest idea how one cleaned a doll-house. So with a little
wink at Mother, she followed Betsey up the stairs.

When she saw Betsey’s collection of house-cleaning materials, she sank
weakly into a big chair and stared. There was a stiff brush, and a soft
brush, and a cake of sapolio; a whole basketful of soft cloths, and a
chamois skin.

“What’s the chamois skin for?” she asked.

“To clean the mirrors,” said Betsey.

“Well, I do declare!” was all Cousin Margaret could say. But pretty soon
she leaned forward and began to watch Betsey with a little secret
admiration. Mrs. Delight was already dressed in one of her fresh morning
dresses, white apron and ruffled sweeping cap, and she and Dinah were
supposed to be moving all the furniture into the drawing-room. Mr.
Delight sat stiffly on the window-seat and watched.

“You see, Cousin Margaret,” explained Betsey, “Mrs. Delight’s twin
sister and her husband are coming to visit. (Those are Anne’s old dolls
she lets me take.) And Mr. Delight is going to the post-office to mail
the invitation. _I’ll_ tell you,—I’ll put him in the car with Dumpling
and make Mrs. Delight and Dinah wave to him, and then you can attend to
him while I clean house. Water’s getting cold!”

“How stylish and proper he do look,—a-driving dat kerridge!” suddenly
observed Betsey in Dinah’s pleasant voice.

“Why, Betsey, how you scared me! I thought you really were another
person!” exclaimed Cousin Margaret, looking up from the post-office. But
when she once looked up from the post-office she couldn’t look back
again, for there was Betsey on her knees, going at the little house with
the largest scrubbing-brush as if the dirt were inches thick.

“You’ll take the paint off!” screamed Cousin Margaret.

“Take the paint off!” echoed Betsey. “Just see here.” She doubled her
cloth over a skewer and began digging out the corners of the little
dining-room windows. And when the room was clean enough, she wiped the
smooth floor vigorously back and forth with a clean cloth.

“Now see the difference,” she announced, looking first at the clean
dining-room and then at the drawing-room.

“Why, the other is actually gray, isn’t it?” said Cousin Margaret,
peering in at the little room. “Don’t you want to let me do this one?”

[Illustration: “HE SURE DO LOOK MIGHTY STYLISH A-DRIVING DAT KERRIDGE,”
SAID DINAH]

“O thank you!” cried Betsey, seizing the carpets to shake out of the
window. So Cousin Margaret promptly began her first house-cleaning. As
she polished off the threshold, she heard a gentle thud, thud, over by
the desk, so she took her head out of the house to see what was going
on. There sat Betsey beating pillows with two of the tiniest little
carpet-beaters you ever saw. They were made of twisted wires, exactly
like big ones, only so small that they made you laugh to look at them.
Cousin Margaret laughed. But she had to own up that the rooms looked
very fresh and sweet, as they put back the clean carpets and dusted
furniture.

“What does your Mrs. Delight do to entertain her guests?” she asked.

“I thought they could have a picnic,” said Betsey, pausing a moment to
think. “I have a pattern for a dandy lunch-basket. And Tom has the
dearest little canoe!”

“Has he, indeed?” observed Tom’s voice around the corner.

“You’ll lend it, won’t you?” pleaded Betsey.

“It makes a good deal of difference what it’s wanted for,” replied Tom,
with his hands in his pockets.

“Well, the Delights are going to have a picnic, and they go to a certain
grove, like Brighton’s Lake, you know, where they have canoes to rent.
And I have everything but the canoe, Tom.”

“Everything?” questioned Tom. “Have you a Thermos bottle?”

“Hum!” said Cousin Margaret loudly. “I’ll make the Thermos bottles for
you,—one quart size, and one pint. I’d love to!”

“How are you going to make them, Cousin Margaret?” asked Tom
respectfully.

“If you children will come down street with me, and show me the nearest
gum machine,—the kind where the gum is done up in silver paper, you
know,—I’ll let you watch me!” bargained Cousin Margaret, determined now
to make a perfectly wonderful article.

“What does she want gum for?” giggled Betsey, scurrying down-stairs
behind Tom.

“She wants the silver paper,” said Tom wisely.

And that was exactly what she did want at the time, but when the happy
trio stood before the red machine in the grocery store, and the thin
stick of gum came shooting out into Cousin Margaret’s hands, she had
another idea.

“Come, we’ll buy three sticks, and I’ll hire you to chew one apiece,”
she said. “Peel off the silver paper without tearing it.”

“I don’t like gum after the wintergreen flavor goes,” said Betsey,
chewing hard.

“You can’t have it anyway,” said Cousin Margaret severely. “Didn’t I buy
it for my quart bottle?”

“You’re going to _mold_ it!” cried Betsey, skipping along the sidewalk.
“Aren’t you clever!”

Mother smiled when she saw them go upstairs again, and she went quietly
out to the pantry without saying a word.

Cousin Margaret sat down at Mr. Betts’ work-table with a mighty puff.
She smoothed away on the bright tin-foil until it shone like solid
silver. Then she molded her soft chewing-gum carefully into a tiny pint
bottle. She clipped off a long strip of tin-foil and wound it around the
bottle, pinched the top a little, and glued on a paper label.

“Keeps cold twenty-four hours!” she cried, holding it out for
inspection.

“Good!” shouted Tom and Betsey.

“Hand over your gum, children,” said Cousin Margaret. “It takes two for
a quart. You can be making the lunch-basket.”

“Weren’t you going to play tennis this afternoon?” asked Betsey
thoughtfully. “Mother said I mustn’t bother you.”

“I was, but I’m _not_,” replied Cousin Margaret recklessly. “I’d rather
play picnic, and sail your canoe in the bathtub.”

Tom slipped quietly down-stairs at mention of the bathtub, and neither
the little girl nor the big girl noticed.

“O William, here come Prudence and John!” cried Cousin Margaret in Mrs.
Delight’s silvery voice, rushing Mrs. Delight to the front door.

“Here we are!” shouted Betsey for Mr. Darling. “It’s so much fun to have
somebody else manage all these dolls, Cousin Margaret!”

“Suppose you manage the Delights,” suggested Cousin Margaret in an
undertone, “and let me have the company.”

“I’d rather,” said Betsey, joyfully, taking charge at once of Mr.
Delight, who was not helping his guests properly.

“Keep your dog off!” said Cousin Margaret, making Mr. Darling rush at
Dumpling in the most ridiculous manner.

“Are you tired, Prudence?” asked Mrs. Delight.

“Tired? No!” said Mrs. Darling.

Betsey made Mr. and Mrs. Delight look at each other.

“Why, what’s up?” questioned Mr. Darling, sitting down on the tiny piano
stool.

“We thought,” began Betsey in Mrs. Delight’s most charming manner, “that
we might go on a picnic.”

“Hoo-ray!” cried Cousin Margaret, making Mr. Darling turn a splendid
handspring across the little parlor.

“Why, John, I am ashamed of you,” said Betsey, sternly, for his wife,
and trying in vain to stop laughing.

“I brought my camera that has legs,” said Mr. Darling, “and I’ll take
your pictures.”

“We haven’t really a camera with legs, have we?” whispered Betsey.

“Down in my trunk,” said Cousin Margaret. “You begin to dress them in
picnic clothes, and I’ll get it. I meant to save it until I went home,
but I know you’d rather have it now.” She struggled to her feet, and
left Betsey tying a soft blue ribbon around Mrs. Delight’s fluffy head.
The camera proved to be a fascinating tin one, with a front part that
pulled in and out beautifully.

[Illustration: “TAKE UP A SANDWICH AND LOOK PLEASANT,” SAID MR. DARLING]

“Let’s hurry. I’m hungry already!” said Cousin Margaret, piling
everything into the little touring-car,—basket, dog, Dinah, and shawls,
helter-skelter. The car whizzed around the room a few times, and stopped
with a jolt at the picnic grounds.

“Spread the shawl on the ground about here,” directed Mrs. Delight,
pointing with the tip of her slipper to a little clearing. “Strew the
cushions around, and—”

“Open up the lunch!” interrupted Mr. Darling, setting up his camera. “I
don’t want to take my picture until the eating begins, and the sun is
about right now.”

“His old picture is just an excuse to eat”, remarked Mrs. Darling.

“Better give de ole dog sump’in to eat. Den he won’t be boddering so
much,” said Dinah.

“Well, let me see,—he’s had twelve cookies,” reflected Mrs. Delight.
“Give him three more and let him go over on that little hill to eat
them.”

“Can’t he hab apple dumpling?” asked Dinah anxiously.

“Give Dumpling Delight a delightful dumpling,” sang Mr. Darling. “Now,
all ready! Take up a sandwich, Mrs. D., and look pleasant!”

“Now let’s take them down to the lake,” suggested Betsey, poking the
last crumb under Dumpling’s muzzle.

When they reached the big, white-tiled bathroom, they found the bathtub
filled with water, a wharf across it, and a beautiful, dark green
sailboat floating gracefully up and down with the waves. And the waves
were so very lively that it seemed as if someone must be quite near.
Betsey glanced behind the door.

“O here’s the Mr. Wind that made the waves,” she said gaily, pulling Tom
down to the lake.

“Will somebody kindly notice the boat-house?” said Tom, kneeling down
good-naturedly.

There was a plank across the tub, wide enough to drive the little
motorcar along, and at the further end stood a tiny cardboard
ticket-window. Behind the little bars, made of toothpicks, stood a paper
ticket-man in a blue cap. And overhead was printed:

                          “CANOES $1.00 AN HOUR
                        SAILBOATS $5.00 AN HOUR”

“Isn’t that grand?” cried Cousin Margaret. “_We_ can afford the green
sailboat as long as the Delights are millionaires.”

Tom grinned, and watched the big girl and the little girl seat the happy
dolls safely in the big boat. And when it was finally untied and sailed
slowly off down the lake, it looked exactly like a real boat party of
sober grown-up people.

“It actually made me sort of hungry,” said Cousin Margaret at last, “to
see them eat at the picnic. Let’s go down and get a gingersnap.”

Tom grinned again. “Mother said when you were through playing, to come
to her upstairs piazza.”

With one accord the two girls carefully placed the picnic party safely
on the wharf and skipped for the piazza. There sat Mother, in her
prettiest company dress of soft white crêpe, smiling at nobody in
particular, but looking at the green wicker tea-table.

“Wow!” cried Tom. “If Dumpling were here, he’d say ‘Woof!’”

On the tea-table were pink plates of thin sandwiches, and a huge glass
pitcher of strawberry-ade with real strawberries floating in it.

“I wish you would pour, Margaret,” said Mother, smiling.

So Cousin Margaret, with a sly wink at Betsey, took her place very
sedately and poured the frosty glasses full, and passed the sandwiches.
And she did it so very well, and with such a grown-up air, that Betsey
wondered how in the world Cousin Margaret could be a little girl so
easily.



                               Chapter V
                           THE CHRISTMAS TREE


Betsey was sitting on the slippery couch looking quite serious. She was
not Mr. Betts today, nor even Dr. Betson. She was just a little girl
with a sore throat, watching the big, real Dr. Lawrence as he rummaged
around in his black bag. He put up his uncomfortable glass spoon that he
pressed down one’s tongue with, and fished out an oblong pasteboard box.

“Oh!” said Betsey.

Dr. Lawrence looked up quickly. “Why do you say ‘Oh!’ Sister?” he asked.

Betsey’s eyes were fastened on the little box. “It’s _just_ the shape of
a Victrola,” she said.

“Hmmmm!” buzzed the big doctor, taking the cover off and dropping in
some tiny pink tablets and some large white ones. “If you will take a
white pill every hour, and gargle a pink one (dissolved in water, of
course) every _half_ hour, you shall have the box! And——hullo! Here’s a
bit of wire just about right for a crank! Now, Mr. Tom, we’ll do up your
burned thumb.”

Tom had been experimenting a little too much with Norah’s teakettle and
the steam had made quite a big blister. Dr. Lawrence unrolled a sheet of
pure white absorbent cotton.

“Oh!” said Betsey.

“Now, deary me!” cried Dr. Lawrence, pretending to be quite put out. “I
suppose the child wants my cotton, too. Mr. Avery, make Betsey stop
saying ‘Oh!’ I won’t have a thing left to give the little girl down the
road, if this child takes all my pills, and boxes, and wire,—and now my
cotton!”

Betsey slipped off the couch and danced around happily. She loved to
hear Dr. Lawrence joke. “It makes such perfectly beautiful snow,” she
said. “And just imagine my little automobile plowing along in it, making
wheel-ruts just like yours.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to have it,” said Dr. Lawrence, resignedly.
“I’ll charge your father for it, though,—see if I don’t. And poor Tom
what will he do?”

“O you can have enough for his thumb,” said Betsey.

“Hmmmm!” buzzed on the doctor, winding away. “Down the road is a little
girl nine years old. She has three dolls, and they’re about as long as
Tom’s thumb.”

“Tom Thumb!” interrupted Betsey.

“Yes’m,” laughed Dr. Lawrence. “Well, this little girl Molly has a lame
knee,—a very lame knee, and I had to send her to bed for a month.”

“A _month_!” echoed Betsey.

“Does it seem long to you?” asked Dr. Lawrence thoughtfully. “That’s
just how it seems to her.”

“Does Molly play with her dolls?” asked Betsey.

“Yes, she sews for them, but they each need a party dress.”

“Can’t she make party dresses?”

“O yes, she _can_, if she has the proper materials. Now, you see a party
dress requires some thin sort of fuzzy cloth——”

“You don’t mean fuzzy, Dr. Lawrence,” interrupted Betsey, smiling. “You
mean soft and drapey.”

“That’s it. I see _you_ know what a party dress is made of. And perhaps
some ribbons and a little piece of lace. How about that?”

Betsey crossed the room, took one of the doctor’s big hands in both hers
and gave it a hard squeeze. “I think you’re a perfectly lovely doctor,
and I saw just what you were driving at all the time. And don’t you
_dare_ to go before I come back.”

And she went directly to the playroom, opened Madame Bettina’s box of
cloth, and looked over its contents. She finally selected a dainty
rosebud muslin with a pink border, a thin dimity covered with wreaths of
tiny forget-me-nots, and a pretty yellow voile. She pulled out a length
of baby ribbon to match each dress, and a handful of soft lace, and
folded the whole carefully in white tissue-paper. Then she went
down-stairs with such a sudden thought in her curly head that she sang a
little tune all the way.

She burst into the library with her little parcel to find Dr. Lawrence
talking and laughing with Father, and putting on his big fur coat.

“What’s up?” he asked, catching sight of Betsey’s shining face.

“_Could_ you wait a minute?” begged Betsey. “You see, Mr. and Mrs.
Delight are going to have a Christmas tree and invite some poor little
children. And I want to write an invitation to Molly’s three dolls! She
could send the dolls over by you when you come this afternoon, and
perhaps I can take them back myself tomorrow.”

“Good enough!” said the doctor good-naturedly, sliding out of his coat
again. “Molly will be so glad she won’t know _what_ to do. I’ll wait.”

Betsey climbed in haste into the big desk chair and wrote carefully on
her blue notepaper:

Mr. and Mrs. William Delight request the honor of your company at a
Christmas Party on December 24th at three o’clock. And on the little
blue envelope she wrote, “For Molly’s three dolls.”

“I will deliver it directly,” said Dr. Lawrence, “and this afternoon I
will bring the company.” And he blew a kiss to Betsey for thanks.

The moment the doctor had gone, Mr. Betts went to his shop and began on
his Victrola, for this was to be Mr. Delight’s present to his wife. Mr.
Betts cut the slender legs with a sharp penknife and bent out the tiny
doors. Then he pasted shiny dark-red paper all over the outside and
pushed in the crank.

“It _almost_ looks as if it would play,” declared Betsey. Then she took
a white pill and gargled a pink one, for she always kept her promise.
Then all was ready.

[Illustration: “HE LEFT A PRINT OF EACH TINY FOOTSTEP”]

“O William!” said Mrs. Delight, sitting down on the gilt sofa beside her
husband, “don’t you think we could get the Christmas tree ourselves?”

“Indeed we could! Put on your long coat and furs, and I will bring the
car around, and we will find one.” Betsey spread out the soft white snow
for the forest, and dressed Mr. Delight in his gray fox coat with its
curly black collar. Then she put on Mrs. Delight’s long brown coat and
fastened up her lovely ermine furs. “The little darling!” she said,
kissing her, and settling both the little dolls in the automobile.

The car did make a fascinating rut in the snow, and when Betsey walked
Mr. Delight over to the hemlock trees he left a print of each tiny
footstep.

Whang! Whang! resounded his tiny axe. Finally the tree toppled over with
a delightful thud,—it was only the very tip of Betsey’s real tree which
stood down-stairs ready for lighting.

“O the sweet little tree!” cried Betsey, seizing it, and, I am sorry to
say, leaving the little couple stranded in the forest.

“I’ll set it in one of my wooden circles that seam-binding comes on, and
cover it with green crêpe paper.”

First she cleared all the furniture out of the little drawing-room and
set up the tree. Then she began to wind her shining tinsel and paper
chains around it, and hung on her dazzling, colored glass balls, blue
and red, and green and gold. And then she hung presents by the dozen on
it. A tiny rocking-horse and a sled, she had to place at the foot of the
tree.

“You poor things!” she exclaimed at last, catching sight of Mr. Delight
lying on his back in the snow. “You must come and get dressed in time
for your own party.”

“I think, William,” began Mrs. Delight enthusiastically, “that I will
wear my blue accordion-plaited crêpe-de-chine.”

“And I will wear my dress-suit,” said Mr. Delight, as Betsey slipped his
tiny cuffs up his sleeves.

“You can stand here,” said Betsey, setting up the host and hostess by
the little Victrola, “and then you will be all ready when the children
arrive.”

And she went down to get ready herself.

“Don’t you think it would be nice, Betsey,” said Mother, as she buttoned
Betsey’s blue cashmere dress, “if you should make a few clothes for
Molly’s children? Just some odd things like a kimono or a sweater?”

“I’m going to,” said Betsey happily, nodding her curly head. “I have an
old gray golf-glove that I can make a sweater of,——the wrist for the
sweater part, and two fingers for the sleeves.”

“That’s my kind daughter,” said Mother, approvingly. “Now run down and
let the doctor in.”

“_Here_ are those three children!” cried Dr. Lawrence, holding out a
square box. “Please hurry and take them! Bless me! I didn’t take a
minute’s comfort for fear I should smash them to bits! Can I come to the
party? How’s the throat?”

Betsey laughed at his list of questions and opened her mouth obediently.

“Fine! Fine!” said the doctor, peering at the throat over his
spectacles. “Christmas day will find you as well as ever. Now, for that,
can’t I come to the party?”

“If you’d like to,” said Betsey, her eyes dancing, for she knew that Dr.
Lawrence would make the best playmate a little girl ever had. And she
led the way with Molly’s dolls, all dressed in the new party dresses,
made since morning by the delighted Molly,—every stitch by hand.

“Well, what a fine man your Mr. Delight is!” declared Dr. Lawrence,
sitting down heavily in the big chair before the doll-house.

“He is. He doesn’t drink or smoke,—just like Father, you know,” said
Betsey.

“I should know that to look at him,” said Dr. Lawrence. “And what a
pretty little wife he has, to be sure!”

“Here come the children, William,” cried Betsey in Mrs. Delight’s sweet
voice.

“Yes, yes, my dear!” boomed Dr. Lawrence hastily, taking a tiny Dutch
boy and a Kewpie doll out of his pocket. “I found two more poor
children, Edith, and brought them along. They live in the alley!”

“O lovely!” said Betsey, admiring the Kewpie’s white fur suit. “Let’s
show them the tree the very first thing.”

[Illustration: “DINNER AM SERVED, SAH,” DRAWLED DR. LAWRENCE, POKING
DINAH’S HEAD BETWEEN THE PINK PORTIÈRES]

And as the children stood speechless around the tree, Betsey and her
playmate untied parcel after parcel, introduced the Dutch boy to his new
sled, and laughed to hear Dumpling growl at the rocking-horse.

“Dinner am served, sah,” drawled Dr. Lawrence, poking Dinah’s head
between the pink portières.

“Get into line, then, children,” giggled Betsey, “and march into the
dining-room.”

Eight dolls are quite a handful for even two people to attend to, but
Betsey and the doctor finally managed to seat the five children around
the big table and get them all waited upon by Dinah and Mrs. Delight.
Betsey had made a big paper brick of ice cream, made up of tiny cubes of
different colors, exactly like the big one that was waiting down-stairs
for her own Christmas dinner.

“You’re a mighty good cook, missus!” piped up Dr. Lawrence for the
Kewpie, rolling his eyes at Dinah. Just then the nursery clock struck
four.

“Bless my soul! I must go!” shouted Dr. Lawrence, getting up in a great
rush and nearly upsetting the whole house.

“O I’m sorry!” said Betsey, following him down-stairs,—“but I’m very
much obliged for this short call. And tomorrow can I go and take Molly’s
dolls back to her?”

“I think you may. If you gargle, you know.”

The two entered the library where Father and Mother were seated.

“I never saw a little girl in all my life,” said Dr. Lawrence to nobody
in particular, “who played so charmingly with her dolls. Now I have a
little niece who had the greatest doll-house last Christmas that you
ever laid eyes on. It was just perfect. Little marble-topped tables, and
desk telephones, and _clothes_—! Why, her dolls had so many clothes they
didn’t know what to do. And all made,—every one of ’em,—all finished. I
never used to understand why she didn’t play with ’em. And now,”—he made
a low bow to Betsey,—“now I know.”

“Because she didn’t have anything to make?” questioned Betsey.

“Exactly so,” said Dr. Lawrence. “Elise had nothing to do but dress and
undress those dolls. She couldn’t talk for them because there was
nothing to say. In fact, I’d like to give a perfectly _bare_ doll-house
to every little girl I know. I wouldn’t give her a single piece of
furniture, or any money to buy it with, either.”

“Betsey has had just a dollar this year for baby ribbon and tissue-paper
and white cardboard,” remarked Mrs. Avery with a smile.

“Well, then, for only a dollar,” replied Dr. Lawrence, “you are learning
many good lessons, Mistress Betsey, with your sewing and carpentering,
and laying rugs. And I hope you will play dolls until you’re quite grown
up!”

And now (this being a true story), if you would like to know how old
Betsey was when she finally covered up the House of Delight, and packed
away her dear little dolls, just turn this page and hunt for a tiny
figure hidden in one corner!



------------------------------------------------------------------------



Transcriber’s note:

 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.

 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.





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