“Muse of Poetry
I would do much for thee
And I am full of tears
Because I have been writin’ so many years
And still unappreciated I be—
“Betsy can write pomes like that any time,” explained Marie, and the audience giggled. “But I always tell Betsy,” Marie went on, “that walkin’ cross-lots ain’t any place to compose poetry to Muses. Well, she was walkin’ ’cross-lots in a brown study an’ a red-striped morey waist, speakin’ this out loud as she went. An’ she got to gesturin’ before she thought. An’ Farmer Peedick, him that married Jane Ann Allen, had jest let his best bull out in the field. An’ whether it was the red morey waist or the pome Betsy never did know, but she thinks it was the pome. She says she thinks the bull, not bein’ used to fust-class poetry, was excited. So he just up an’ ran after her. Well, she stopped recitin’, an’ ran, too. She jest got over the barb-wire fence in time. But I tell you, Betsy Bobbet is a wonderful woman! When she was safe she fixed that bull with her eye (it was a poet’s eye, she says to me), an’ recited the remainder of that ode to him. An’, ladies an’ gentlemen, you mayn’t believe it, but that bull was cowed! Yes, sir. He looked at her, Betsy says to me, as if he was sayin’ ‘I can’t stand that!’ an’ he ran. Yes, sir, he just ran!”
She pulled aside the frame, and there smirked Betsy, very stiff and proper, with her bonnet and veil still a wreck and her red morey waist very much askew, and with a jagged rent down the front of her skirt. But her corkscrew curls twisted gracefully down either side of her face, her eyes were rolled up, and her mitted hand clutched a roll of paper. The audience howled.
Marie closed the cover, bowed, and went on to the end of the pictures.
The dances—the Indian dance, the minuet and the Russian dance—were beautiful and everyone applauded them, though they liked the Indian dance best. When they had finished some of the guests, to Louise’s great delight, demanded Camp Fire work, and bought it, too. After that the girls distributed coffee and sandwiches free, and then the Scouts took the audience, in relays, up the river to Wampoag.
Before they went somebody said to Marie:
“My dear, you were splendid. I’m going to give that entertainment for our church this winter, and write to you for help. But the most convincing and amusing picture of the lot was ‘Betsy Bobbet.’ Do tell me how you ever managed to make the thing so life-like?”
But Marie merely looked modest.
“We did the best we could,” she said. “It was quite simple, after all.”