It's Friday.
Chapter 6 : The Milkman Story
EVERY MORNING Betsy called for Tacy, so that they could walk to school together.
Betsy came to Tacy’s house a little early, usually, to be there when Tacy had her hair combed. There was a painful fascination in this business, for Tacy always cried.
Her ringlets were tangled after her night’s sleep. When she washed for breakfast, they were merely tied back with a ribbon. Tacy’s mother was busy getting breakfast for thirteen, and Tacy’s curls took time. After breakfast the time for curls arrived. Tacy began to cry at sight of the comb.
Betsy’s eyes grew round and she swayed back and forth as she watched. “But she cried harder than that, the first day of school, Mrs. Kelly.”
“Then she must have cried pretty hard that day,” Mrs. Kelly would answer. “Keep still, Tacy. I’m trying not to hurt.”
Mrs. Kelly was stout and gentle. She was like a large, anxious dove. She was different from Betsy’s mother who was slim and red-headed and gay. Betsy’s mother knew how to scold as well as to laugh and sing. But Tacy’s mother never scolded.
“If I tried to scold eleven I’d be scolding all the time,” she explained to Betsy one day.
After the curls were brushed over Tacy’s mother’s finger, Betsy and Tacy started off to school. They walked to school together, and they walked home together. Back and forth together, every day.
At first it was autumn; there were red and yellow leaves for Betsy and Tacy to scuffle under foot. Then the leaves were brown, then they were blown away; that was in the gray time named November. Then came the exciting first snow, and this was followed by more snow and more. At last the drifts rising beside the sidewalk were higher than their heads.
Betsy and Tacy lay down in the drifts and spread out their arms to make angels. They rolled the snow into balls and had battles with Julia and Katie. They started a snowman in the vacant lot, and added to him day after day until…before a thaw came…he was as fat as Mrs. Chubbock.
The snow was fun while there was sun to glitter on it from a sky as bright and blue as Tacy’s eyes. But after a time the weather grew cold; it was too cold for Betsy and Tacy to play in the snow any more. Their hands inside mittens ached, and their feet inside overshoes grew numb. The wind nipped their faces in their snugly tied hoods; their breath froze on the bright scarves knotted around their necks.
On days like that, as they walked home from school, Betsy told Tacy the milkman story.
It started one day when a milkman passed them on the corner by the chocolate-colored house. His wagon was running on runners; and it wasn’t an ordinary wagon; it looked like a little house. The milkman sat covered with buffalo robes, and from deep in shadows came the glimmer of a fire. It might have come from the milkman’s pipe, but Betsy and Tacy thought that it came from a little stove inside the milkman’s wagon.
That gave Betsy the idea for a story.
The story went differently on different days, but one day it went like this:
Two little girls named Betsy and Tacy were walking home from school. It was very cold.
“I wish we could catch a ride,” said Tacy.
And just at that moment a milkman came riding by. He was riding in a wagon which looked like a little house. He had a little stove inside. He said to Betsy and Tacy:
“Hello, little girls. Wouldn’t you like a ride in this wagon? I’m through delivering milk, so you can have it for yourselves.”
Betsy and Tacy said, “Thank you very much!” And the milkman jumped out, and they jumped in. And the milkman went away.
But before he went away he said, “You don’t need to drive that horse. It’s a pretty cold day for keeping hold of reins. Just wind the reins around the whip.”
So Betsy and Tacy wound the reins around the whip, and they said to the horse, “Take us home, horse.” The milkman’s horse was a magic horse, but nobody knew it except the milkman and Betsy and Tacy.
The horse started off over the snow. The sleigh-bells jingled on his back, and the wagon ran so smoothly that it hardly joggled Betsy and Tacy. They were sitting beside the little stove in the very inside of the wagon. They were sitting on two little stools beside the stove.
In just a minute they were as warm as toast. It was cozy sitting there with the wagon sliding along. Only by and by Tacy said, “I’m hungry.”
And Betsy said, “That’s funny. Look what I see!” And she pointed over to a corner of the wagon, and there were two baskets. One was marked, “Betsy,” and one was marked, “Tacy.” They were covered with little red cloths.
Betsy and Tacy took off these cloths and spread them on their knees, and they looked into their baskets. Each one found a cup of cocoa there. It was hot. It was steaming. And it hadn’t spilled a drop. That was because the milkman’s wagon was magic like his horse.
And beside each cup of cocoa were doughnuts. They were hot too. They smelled like Mrs. Ray’s doughnuts smell when she lifts them out of the lard on a fork. They smelled good. There were plenty of doughnuts for Betsy and plenty for Tacy.
“Isn’t this fun?” Tacy said. “Riding along in the milkman’s wagon and eating doughnuts?”
Just then the horse turned his head. “Those doughnuts smell good,” he said.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Betsy and Tacy. “We didn’t know that horses ate doughnuts.”
“Well, I do,” said the horse. “Of course I’m a magic horse.”
And Betsy and Tacy put three doughnuts on the whip and they held out the whip and the horse opened his mouth and the doughnuts dropped right in.
“Thank you,” said the horse. “I’ll take you home every day it’s cold. I’ll meet you where I met you today, on the corner by the chocolate-colored house.”
In a minute he turned his head and said, “Of course it’s a secret.”
“Oh, yes,” said Betsy and Tacy. “We understand that.”
They had come so far now that they had come to Hill Street Hill. They were halfway up. They put their cups back in the baskets and covered the baskets with the red cloths, and they climbed out of the wagon.
“Thank you, horse,” they said.
“You’re welcome,” said the horse.
They were almost up Hill Street Hill, and they weren’t cold at all, hardly, on account of the ride they’d had.
Julia and Katie were just ahead.
“Hurry up!” they called. “Hurry up so you don’t get frost bite.”
“Frost bite!” said Betsy and Tacy, and they looked at each other and laughed.
“We’re warm as toast,” said Betsy, stamping her feet.
“We’re hardly cold at all,” said Tacy, swinging her arms.
Betsy said to Tacy, “Let’s go ask your mamma if you can’t bring your paper dolls and come over to my house to play.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Tacy. “I hope we meet that milkman again tomorrow. Don’t you, Betsy?”
“Those were good doughnuts,” said Betsy. “Maybe my mamma will give us some more.”