Daily Book Excerpt: YA fiction shelf:
Next book on the shelf is Betsy and Joe
Senior year at Deep Valley High! Hmm, let’s see. Betsy has had a kind of school rivalry as well as an unrequited crush type thing on Joe Willard – She and Joe are always neck and neck for the top grades, etc. And he’s different than the rowdy group of guys she hangs out with. He’s more serious. I think he’s poor, if I recall correctly, so he has after-school jobs – and he really puts his nose to the grindstone with his studies. 2 books after this one, Betsy and Joe get married. So even though Joe has been peripheral in the other 3 books, now he starts to take center stage.
There’s lots of drama going on. Tacy actually falls in love with someone – a guy she ends up marrying. Tib falls for the vain kind of dandyish quarterback – his name is Ralph Maddox. Tony, Betsy’s long-time friend, falls in love with her, starts to pursue her. Betsy feels about Tony in a sisterly way. So there’s a lot of drama there.
Here’s an excerpt about some dance. Tony asks Betsy to go and she feels like she has to say Yes, because Joe hasn’t asked her yet. This gives her much torment. Also, I think she and Joe had a fight of some kind … she was hoping he would get over it and ask her to the dance, but he appears to be holding some kind of grudge. Then it turns out that Joe is there with someone else … I think. Can’t remember. Anyway – it’s just one of those awkward situations which feels SO TRAGIC AND IMPORTANT when you are 17 years old.
Excerpt from Betsy and Joe
At last the chime clock brought the New Year’s Eve dance.
Tacy wasn’t going. She had been given a second chance; Cab had asked her. But she had decided that she would prefer going to her uncle’s with the family.
“Her uncle’s!” said Tib, throwing complete incomprehension into her voice.
“I can’t make her out,” said Betsy.
“She’s sure to be an old maid unless we take steps.”
Tib had come as usual to dress for the party with Betsy – and to do Betsy’s multiplicity of puffs. The pompadour was rolled over a big sausagelike mat and each puff was rolled over a small one.
“The rat and all the little mice, Tony calls them,” said Betsy, acting lighthearted.
The new white wool dress was a dream. Below the tucked, form-fitting bodice, the skirt fell into pleats. It was tripped with gold and she wore a gold band, of course, around her hair.
Tib’s self-made pink silk was a triumph. She wore pink shoes and stockings and a wide pink band around her head.
“You both look lovely,” said Mrs. Ray, dashing in, in her taffeta petticoat. She, too, was dressing for the ball.
Margaret, who was going to stay up for the first time to see the old year out, with Anna, making fudge, leaned over the rail as Betsy and Tib went lightly, proudly down the stairs.
Ralph and Tony waited, pressed and immaculate. Tony held the pale blue opera cape.
“Pretty skippy!” he said admiringly, putting it around Betsy’s shoulders.
Betsy didn’t like the new opera cape. She felt as though it were a hoo-doo.
The boys had engaged a hack. This unheard-of gesture was a tribute to the elegance of the Melborn Hotel. Betsy felt unbelievably worldly as the hack, on its winter runners, slid along the snowy streets and halted at the illuminated entrance to the Melborn.
They went through the swinging door into the lobby. It smelled of cigars and the fat red leather chairs. They crossed the room and ascended the grand staircase which rose at the far end.
The ballroom was two stories high and overlooked the river. Here Deep Valley gave its most fashionable parties. Mamie Dodd didn’t play for this dance. Lamm’s Orchestra, behind a screen of potted palms, was tuning up provocatively. The ballroom was decorated with poinsettia and holly. There were red shades on the chandeliers.
“Supper is going to be served in the Ladies’ Ordinary,” Carney told Betsy and Tib. She looked very pretty in the store-bought party dress, and Tom looked distinguished in his uniform.
The high school crowd seemed stimulated by the entrance into the world of fashion. All the girls looked pretty and the boys were kindled to unusual politeness, gallantry, and wit.
Betsy was excited, almost joyful, in spite of that doom in her breast, but her spirits died like a quenched fire at the first glimpse of Joe. She and Tony were dancing the opening waltz, “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now.” She was happily floating in his arms – no one could waltz like Tony, no one! – when she saw a light pompadour and stalwart shoulders. Joe’s lower lip was outthrust in a look Betsy knew. He was gazing at Irma, whose irresistible face, framed in natural (not Magically Waved) curls, was lifted to his.
“If he isn’t crazy about her now, he soon will be,” Betsy thought, and suddenly felt completely wretched. But she didn’t show it. She smiled glowingly at Tony.
Joe didn’t ask Betsy for a dance. The program ran on through “Howdy Cy” and “Ciri Biri Biri” and “Tonight Will Never Come Again.” Betsy grew gayer and gayer, but none of her vivacity came from within. Inside, she ached. She ached all over, as you do when you have the grippe.
Laughing and flushed, she barn-danced, waltzed, and two-stepped. She chattered with the other girls about the marvelous party. She rushed up to her mother to exclaim. Tony went with her, to ask Mrs. Ray for a dance. He nodded his head negligently at Betsy.
“That daughter of yours! She’s like a balloon on a string.”
“Not a balloon! Oh, Tony! No! I only weigh a hundred pounds.”
Mrs. Ray smiled at them. Loving parties, she was as happy as Betsy seemed to be. She whirled off with Tony, while Betsy, more sedately, circled with her father, who danced, as he did everything else, with benevolent dignity.
When the New Year came in, the orchestra played Auld Lang Syne. Everyone joined hands in a giant circle which revolved, singing:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind …
Tony’s dark eyes were bright with joy. He looked at Betsy as they swung hands and sang. Then the circle broke and people threw confetti and blew horns. Everyone called, “Happy New Year!” “Happy 1910!”
Nineteen-ten! That was the year they would graduate in, the year they had been looking forward to for so long. How could it possibly start off so badly, so horribly! In the crowded, clamorous room, filled with laughing voices and the bright rain of confetti, Betsy felt forlorn.
She looked around and found Joe across the room. He was looking at her. But as soon as their glances crossed, he looked away.
And presently she saw him dancing with Irma to “Yip-i-addy-i-ay!”
