Fifties children gone wild
on summer vacation !
School is out and the neighborhood children are excited
about summer vacation. Betsy is especially excited because her father recently
built a summerhouse in the big back yard, reminiscent of the one in his back
yard as a child.
Betsy and her friends have many summer adventures in a
small town in the late fifties. With no video games or computers, they amuse
themselves with activities such as playing checkers, dressing up in old adult
size clothing, running a lemonade stand, and trying to fry an egg on the
sidewalk. Every chapter is a new and
different adventure the neighborhood kids have, many times in Betsy's back yard.
The Duchess gets muddy, catches
a goldfish
One day Betsy and her best friend Ellen are in the summer
house sewing doll clothes. Betsy's younger sister Star and Ellen's younger
sister Linda are playing dress up in old adult clothes. Linda is wearing a black lace dress which has
been wrapped around her body many times to make it fit. She parades around telling Star she is a
“Duckess” that she lives in a castle and is very rich. She falls in a small shallow fishpond in the
yard and cannot get out as the muddy sides are slick and her dress hinders her.
The girls get a small ladder and try to help Linda climb up
on to the ladder, but she falls in again and is crying. Star counts the goldfish
in the pond. There are supposed to be eight fish, but she can only see seven. Now Star is upset about the lost fish which
only adds to the chaos. Finally, they
get Linda out of the pool and get the “Duckess” dress unwound and off Linda who
is wearing a ruffled sun suit underneath.
Now she is screaming that the goldfish is inside her pants. Eventually they get the fish out of Linda's
pants, and when they release it back into the pool, it goes swimming away. Linda is ok.
The goldfish is ok. All is well
when mother comes to check on the girls.
Lemonade gone
wrong!
One day Betsy and her friend
Billy decide to open a lemonade stand and must make do with whatever supplies
they can find to make lemonade. Mother gives them permission to make lemonade
and is in the house, but is on the phone, so is not monitoring their every move.
Being short on lemons and not knowing what ingredients should be used, they
make a concoction of raspberry jam, molasses, prune juice, and one lemon. The
mixture is described as turning out a grayish color which is not so appetizing.
As I read this, I am wondering if the author actually made this drink to see if
it turned out gray and if she did a taste test!
Betsy and her friend Billy sell
the lemonade in front of Betsy's house at their makeshift lemonade stand made from
a wooden box. Two men, complete strangers pull up in their car and each
purchase a glass of lemonade or rather “Razburyaide” as Betsy and Billy renamed
it. Comparing this scene with such a scene today, I think about how unsafe and unacceptable
it would be today for children to communicate with strangers in such a way.
However, the men are kind and are even discreet when they pour the grayish
liquid out of the car window.
Everyone else that stops by looks
at the Razburyaide and then politely declines saying they are not thirsty, so
when the mailman Mr. Fisher comes by, they try to give him a glass for
free. He is driving a parcel post wagon
drawn by a horse called Dolly. Mr.
Fisher kindly tells the children he is not thirsty but says maybe Dolly would
like a drink. They pour the liquid into a bucket and Dolly takes a drink. Then
she raises her head and loudly neighs.
Dolly refuses to take another drink.
Eventually the rest of the Razburyaide gets thrown into the bushes. There
is conversation about the possibility of a raspberry bush coming up there next
year.
Egg frying on a
long hot summer day
On a very hot day, after hearing
some adults say it is hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, the children
decide to try it. I think it is a fifties thing that their parents make them come
up with five cents out of their own allowance and pay for the egg. Most parents
today would not give a second thought about the cost of giving their children
one egg!
When I read this book as a child,
I tried frying an egg on the sidewalk, but like these children, I was unsuccessful.
The chapter on egg frying ends when the family dog finds the egg and laps up
all traces of it, except for the tell-tale yellow stickiness on his ears.
Watermelon seeds
teach Rodney a lesson
Betsy plans a watermelon party
in the back yard. Everyone can eat all the watermelon they want. When everyone has stuffed themselves with
watermelon, they plan to count each child's seeds. The one with the most seeds wins a
prize. Before the party, Eddie boasts to
all his friends that he will win the prize. Competitive Rodney hears Eddie
bragging and comes up with a plan to win the contest. He asks his mom if the
family can have some watermelon for dinner.
For several days before the party, Rodney helps his mother with the
dinner dishes and collects all the watermelon seeds.
On the day of the party Rodney
stuffs the seeds in his pockets, then spills them all over his bedroom floor
and is almost late for the party as he picks up as many as he can before dashing
off to the party. When he arrives, he realizes that the watermelon seeds from
Betsy's watermelons are black. The seeds
in Rodney's pockets are white. He is devastated realizing he will not be able
to win the contest. He even loses his appetite for watermelon. The party is no fun for him.
After the party is over, and
Eddie not Rodney wins the prize, Rodney returns home. To make matters worse, he
runs up to his room and slips on some random watermelon seeds that are still on
his floor. He falls down, skinning his nose. The story ends with Rodney sobbing
on his mother's lap and telling her the whole story about the watermelon seeds,
a lesson in honesty learned the hard way!
The ice cream
man has trouble, kind children save the day!
The Jim Dandy truck periodically
drives through the neighborhood selling ice cream on a stick in many delicious,
assorted flavors. This is a special treat in the summer. I remember when I read
this as a child this description of the ice cream made me want a Jim Dandy so
badly:
“There was vanilla covered with chocolate,
vanilla covered with nuts, vanilla covered with coconut. There was also chocolate
ice cream covered with the same coatings. There were peach and strawberry Jim
Dandies, and there were others made of orange ice and raspberry ice. …. All the
different kinds were kept frozen as hard as bricks inside of the truck. When
the driver took them out, they smoked as they struck the warm air.” (Pages 57-58)
Doesn't that description sound
just lovely if you were a kid on a hot day! Then one day the bell broke. What a difference
that makes! With no bell ringing, no one knows the truck is in the neighborhood
and no one buys ice cream!
Billy happens to be out on the street
skating. He tries to help Jim the truck
driver by looking for a bell he thinks he might have at his house, but he does
not find it. Betsy and little sister Star get involved and all three children
are very persistent in trying to help Jim.
They resourcefully suggest a flute, drum, ukulele, alarm clock, and
sweet potato. Finally little Star saves the day with her triangle that she plays
in the kindergarten orchestra. It sounds very much like the ice cream bell. The
three children ride the Jim Dandy truck all afternoon and take turns playing
the triangle. They sell lots of ice cream and they all get paid for helping. They get paid with Jim Dandies and all are
happy!
It happened at the supermarket
One day Betsy's mother sends Betsy down
the street to the supermarket with a list of items to make vegetable soup. It
happens that Betsy's friend Ellen and Ellen’s little sister Linda are at the
supermarket with their little red wagon. Their mother has sent them with a shopping
list of items to make gingerbread.
Linda is happy
she has a penny to get peanuts. While Ellen is shopping, Linda puts her penny
in the peanut machine and to her surprise, all the peanuts in the machine come
falling out. Linda puts the peanuts in her little red wagon. She becomes the
center of attention with other children in the supermarket who gather around and
start grabbing peanuts from her wagon. Big sister Ellen, who has been shopping,
is astonished to see children surrounding her little sister who is sitting in
her wagon covering up all the peanuts with the full skirt on her dress!
In the process of
buying soda and peanuts, the girls laid their lists down and unknowingly got
them mixed up. Much to the surprise and confusion for both mothers, Betsy comes
home with items to make gingerbread, and Ellen has items to make soup. After a phone call, the mothers solve the
mystery. Betsy's mother makes the gingerbread while Ellen's mother makes the
soup, and the two families get together that evening for a dinner of soup and
gingerbread!
Muddy Fun at the
pool site
Betsy's neighbors,
the Jacksons build a swimming pool in their back yard. All the neighborhood
children are very excited with anticipation of getting to swim in the pool. It
is big entertainment for the children to watch the pool being dug. There is
excitement when it rains in the big hole before the pool is finished. A couple
of the boys accidentally slide into the huge muddy hole and are covered with
mud. This makes for a cute story, but this would not fly today. Safety would be
a top priority and the hole would be covered and probably a fence around it
keeping everyone out.
Some of the
children get too excited and seem to forget who the pool belongs to. They start
a swimming club and plan on charging admission to the pool for those that are
not a member of their swimming club. They even tell Mr. Jackson’s daughter she must
pay. When the pool is finally completed
and ready to be used, Mr. Jackson, who owns the pool, must gently clarify to
the children that he owns this pool. The bossy children who formed the swimming
club must humbly dissolve the club. Mr.
Jackson is kind and forgiving and everyone gets to use the pool.
Betty Jane’s
mysterious box
At the end of summer,
the neighborhood children get to enjoy a hayride and wiener roast. Betty Jane
brings a big box that has pictures on the outside, of delicious looking saltwater
taffy. This gets the attention of all the children who stay close to Betty Jane,
and they all want to sit by her on the hayride. She is very popular! When they
get to the site of the wiener roast, Betty Jane starts to open the box. All the children crowd around and try to help
her. Then she opens the box, and it contains Betty Jane's galoshes which her
mother had insisted she bring so her feet would not get wet! This makes a bunch of disappointed children.
The saltwater
taffy disappointment is forgotten as the children enjoy the roasted hot dogs,
baked beans, hot cocoa, and cake. This takes place in the fall and is the last
story in the book. At the very end, Dad tells Betsy he plans to board up the
summer house for the winter, paint it a bright orange-red color, and make it
look Christmassy.
Some things were different growing up in
the fifties, but some things never change. Kids swimming on hot summer days,
anticipation of an ice cream truck, and loving to play in the mud are classic
human nature. I was fortunate to get
this book through an interlibrary loan, although it is currently for sale at
online bookstores at a reasonable price. I eventually bought an inexpensive
paperback copy, but as of this writing, there are copies for sale valued up to
$995.00 or perhaps more. I love this book
every bit as much now as I did over fifty years ago.
