Betsy-Tacy and Tib Read Online Free PDF Page B

was much the same. But at Tib’s house there was a basement.
    It was floored with cement, and it was warm and dry and sunny. In the center was a strange contrivance called a furnace, which heated Tib’s house. This was the only furnace in Deep Valley. In the basement also there were tubs for washing clothes. There were closets where glass jars full of pickles and jellies were stored. And there was a great open space where wood was piled, stacked in long orderly rows.
    One day just before school began Betsy and Tacy came over to play with Tib. They wiped their feet hard on the mat at Tib’s back door, for Tib’s house was very clean. After they had wiped their feet hard, they rapped and the hired girl came to the door.
    “Hello,” said Betsy. “We came over to play with Tib.”
    “Hello,” said the hired girl. Her name was Matilda. She was old and wore glasses and had graying yellow braids wound round and round herhead. “Have you wiped your feet?” she asked, looking down at their shoes.
    “Yes, we have,” said Betsy.
    “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” said Matilda, “for Tib is down in the basement. And there’s such a mess there; it couldn’t be worse.”
    “What kind of a mess?” Betsy asked eagerly, and Tacy’s blue eyes began to dance. A mess! That sounded like fun.
    “Go see for yourselves,” said Matilda. “You can go down the outside way.”

    The two sloping doors which admitted from the outside of the house to the basement were flung open. Betsy and Tacy scampered down the stairs. And down in the basement they did indeed find a mess. A beautiful mess!
    The winter’s supply of wood had been thrown into the basement but it had not yet been piled; it had just been thrown in helter skelter. There seemed to be an ocean of wood, and rising like islands were two small yellow heads, belonging to Tib and her little brother Freddie.
    Tib had two brothers, but the one named Hobbie was hardly more than a baby. Frederick was Paul’s age; he was old enough to play with; and like Tib he was good natured and easy to play with.
    “We’re building a house out of wood,” he shouted now, as Betsy and Tacy waded joyfully in.
    “Come on and help!” cried Tib.
    Betsy and Tacy took off their hats and helped.
    They piled the wood just the way Tib and Freddie told them to. For Tib and Freddie were good at building houses; their father was an architect. This house they were building was like a real house. It was wonderful.
    It was big enough to sit down in. It was even big enough to stand up in, if you didn’t stand too straight. It had a window, and a doorway you couldwalk through, if you stooped only a little.
    They found some boards and laid them across the top for a roof.
    “Now it can’t rain in,” Betsy said.
    They worked so hard that they grew warm and sticky and dirty and very tired. But it was such fun that they were amazed when they heard the whistles blowing for twelve o’clock.
    “Oh, dear, we must go home for dinner,” Betsy said. “But we’ll hurry back.”
    “We’ll eat fast,” Tacy said.
    “We’ll eat fast too,” said Tib, and she and Freddie hurried up the stairs.
    Betsy and Tacy ran all the way home to their dinners.
    “Mercy goodness, what’s the matter?” asked Betsy’s mother when Betsy ran into the house. “Your cheeks are like fire.”
    “Oh, Mamma!” cried Betsy. “We’re having such fun. We’re building a house in Tib’s basement.”
    “When can we move in?” asked Betsy’s father, who was already eating his dinner with Margaret in the high chair beside him. Betsy’s father loved to joke.
    Betsy washed her hands and face and sat down opposite Julia. She thought she ate her dinner quicker than a wink but she wasn’t quite throughwhen she heard Tacy yoo-hooing from her hitching block. Tacy’s mother wouldn’t let her come over to the Rays’ house when they were eating a meal. She didn’t think it was polite. So Tacy always waited on the hitching block.