“Then she said, ‘Oh, that’s just Jim, coming home drunk as usual.’ And she lay down again and went right to sleep! My—I’d never go right to sleep if it were Dick! And I’ve already asked Stacia to come here some time for a week-end! What shall I do about it?”
“Have her. Mother will like to do it for you. You needn’t tell her a thing, but Mother will see some things for herself, you know. We’ll give Stacia our kind of a good time and your debt will be paid. And you can keep on being nice to her at school, I should think, Doris. It’s easy enough to have other friends and stop being intimate without dropping anybody with a jolt. That wouldn’t be kind.”
“My, Betty, I’m glad you are my sister! I was afraid you’d want me not to have anything more to do with Stacia, and Stacia likes me.”
“Perhaps you can be a good influence, Doris; but it isn’t very good for you to make such a close friend of Stacia. I’m sure you will ‘use good judgment about it,’ as Mother always says.”
“My, I’m glad I belong to this family. But Stacia will think us ‘slow.’ That’s her word.”
“We’ll have a party for her and do so many nice things that she will think being ‘slow’ is the finest thing in the world! Now let’s talk about Christmas presents.”
CHAPTER IX
MYSTERIES, PREPARATIONS AND A “TRADE-LAST”
It was characteristic of Betty’s rushing life, a life she loved, by the way, that she should be whisked from Lucia’s woes and the glimpse of life at the Murchison home to the problems of Doris, in her own well ordered home, and then to the pushing program of school, with the last Christmas preparations. Plenty of sleep at night, on which Betty’s parents insisted as a rule, gave Betty energy for every day’s full program.
There is no time so full of joyous anticipations, merriment and human kindness as that just before Christmas. Temporarily Betty was in charge of a Sunday school class of children, little girls whose teacher was ill. These she was teaching Luke’s beautiful Christmas story and to sing out sweetly “It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old,” for they were to sing that in their Christmas celebration. Betty herself was to be an angel in the Christmas pageant at the church and had finally a minor part in the Christmas play at the high school.
“Oh, yes, Carolyn,” said she one morning at school, “having nothing to do, I thought I’d take on a few more things to practice for! But how can you refuse when it’s all so lovely?”