Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe by Maud Hart Lovelace

Author:Maud Hart Lovelace
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1947-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

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More Letters

JULIA’S LETTERS WERE READ until they were worn thin. Mrs. Ray read them first to herself and then asked Betsy to read them aloud to her and Margaret. She read them to herself again at intervals throughout the day, and after supper Betsy read them aloud to her father. After half an hour he wished to hear them again, so Betsy read them again, and over and over on succeeding evenings.

Mr. Ray usually took Margaret on his knee to listen. He was a tall, stout, very erect man with satiny black hair, hazel eyes, and a big nose. He listened with a proud fond smile. Mrs. Ray, red-haired, slim, and alert, listened in a rocker close by. The lamp threw their shadows on the unplastered wall, and frustrated moths banged unheeded on the screened door of the cottage. It was one of half a dozen cottages, each with two small rooms and a narrow porch, that surrounded the rambling, white-painted old Inn.

Both letters had been written on board the Romanic, en route to Naples. They were long letters. Julia remarked that people said she spent most of her time writing; but she wanted her family to take the trip right along with her. And if ever one person took four others through Europe by means of pen and paper, it was Julia that summer.

The Rays lived a double life. They rested and ate, fished and bathed at Murmuring Lake in Minnesota. But they also took the Rev. Mr. Lewis’ “personally conducted tour.”

Although landbound, they felt the lazy charm of shipboard life, sitting in deck chairs watching the ever-changing water. The steward prepared salt baths for them. They had breakfast at nine, broth at eleven, luncheon at half past one, tea on deck at four, and dinner at seven.

They went to church in the salon and heard the Church of England clergyman pray for King Edward and Queen Alexandra. They heard Julia, in her little black silk dress, sing at the Ship’s Concert. They ate at the Captain’s dinner and danced at the Grand Ball.

At the Azores they felt the intoxication of a first encounter with a tropical island—purple bougainvillea climbing over everything; narrow streets with tiny plaster houses painted white, blue, yellow, and pink; whining beggars, clamoring vendors, women wrapped in shawls.

They went on through Italy, Switzerland, up the River Rhine, into Holland, Belgium, France, and England.

Julia enjoyed everything five times as much as the average traveler, she said. “I think of each one of you and look at everything just five times as hard.”

Bettina (Julia’s name for Betsy) must learn languages at once. “Every cultured person should know at least French.”

She was buying presents for them madly. The Rev. Mr. Lewis had promised to bring a box home in the fall when Julia went on to Berlin and her study with Fraulein von Blatz.

“Oh, I’m so happy! I can’t believe it is I, Julia Ray, who is traveling in Europe, having all her cherished dreams fulfilled.”

Letters, more than anything else, characterized this summer vacation for Betsy.

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