Understood Betsy quotes

At home, Aunt Frances had always known exactly what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places before she even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had been carefully trained to think faster than the scholars.

Somebody had always been explaining things to Elizabeth Ann so industriously that she had never found out a single thing for herself before.

This was a very small discovery, but an original one. Elizabeth Ann was as excited about it as a mother-bird over the first egg that hatches.

she ended triumphantly; “it’s which way you want to go!” Uncle Henry looked at her attentively as she talked, eyeing her sidewise over the top of one spectacle-glass. When she finished—“Well, now, that’s so,” he admitted, and returned to his arithmetic.

It was a short remark, shorter than any Elizabeth Ann had ever heard before.

Aunt Frances and her teachers always explained matters at length. But it had a weighty, satisfying ring to it. The little girl felt the importance of having her statement recognized. She turned back to her driving.

She stepped up to the wagon and held up her arms to the child. “Come on, Betsy, and get some supper,” she said, as though Elizabeth Ann had lived there all her life and had just driven into town and back.

And that was the arrival of Elizabeth Ann at Putney Farm.

The brown-haired one took a long, strong step or two and swung her up on the porch. “You take her in, Mother,” she said. “I’ll help Father unhitch.”

“Mother, did you put Shep out?” asked Cousin Ann; and when Aunt Abigail said, “No! There! I forgot to!” Cousin Ann went away; and that was the last of her.

They certainly believed in being saving of their words at Putney Farm.

Elizabeth Ann began to undress. She was only half-awake; and that made her feel only about half her age, which wasn’t very great, the whole of it, and she felt like just crooking her arm over her eyes and giving up! She was too forlorn!

The little girl lay on her back, looking up at the cracks in the plaster ceiling and watching the shadows sway and dance as the candle flickered in the gusts of cold air. She herself began to feel a soft, pervasive warmth.

Aunt Abigail’s great body was like a stove.

It was very, very quiet, quieter than any place Elizabeth Ann had ever known, except church, because a trolley-line ran past Aunt Harriet’s house and even at night there were always more or less bangings and rattlings.

“I never did,” said the little girl, but in a less doubtful tone than she had ever used with that phrase so familiar to her.

A dim notion was growing up in her mind that the fact that she had never done a thing was no proof that she couldn’t.

“I’ll show you,” said Uncle Henry.

Well, if I haven’t, it’s because words fail me.

If there is anything horrid that an examination didn’t do to Elizabeth Ann, I have yet to hear of it.

It began years ago, before ever she went to school, when she heard Aunt Frances talking about how she had dreaded examinations when she was a child, and how they dried up her mouth and made her ears ring and her head ache and her …

He smiled at her as though he were sure she would understand, and never said a word. Betsy looked forward again and saw the gleaming buggy vanishing over the hill in front of them. She smiled back at Ralph silently.

Not a thing had happened the way she had planned; no, not a single thing! But it seemed to her she had never been so happy in her life.

They had decided not to tell Molly until the last minute, so she had dropped off peacefully, as usual. But poor Betsy’s eyes were wide open. She saw a gleam of light under the door. It widened; the door opened.

Aunt Abigail stood there, in her night cap, mountainous in her long white gown, a candle shining up into her serious old face.

“You awake, Betsy?” she whispered, seeing the child’s dark eyes gleaming at her over the covers. “I just—I just thought I’d look in to see if you were all right.”

Betsy jumped out first, and while Uncle Henry was helping Aunt Frances out, she was dashing up the walk like a crazy thing. She flung open the front door and catapulted into Aunt Abigail just coming out.

It was like flinging herself into a featherbed.

…

Aunt Abigail spoke now. She cleared her throat twice before she could bring out a word. Then she said, “Why, yes, we’d kind of like to keep her. We’ve sort of got used to having her around.”

That’s what she said, but, as you have noticed before on this exciting day, what people said didn’t matter as much as what they looked

; and as her old lips pronounced these words so quietly the corners of Aunt Abigail’s mouth were twitching, and she was swallowing hard. She said, impatiently, to Cousin Ann, “Hand me that handkerchief, Ann!”

She said, impatiently, to Cousin Ann, “Hand me that handkerchief, Ann!” And as she blew her nose, she said, “Oh, what an old fool I am!”

Then, all of a sudden, it was as though a great, fresh breeze had blown through the house.

They all drew a long breath and began to talk loudly and cheerfully about the weather and Aunt Frances’s trip and how Aunt Harriet was and which room Aunt Frances was to have and would she leave her wraps down in the hall or take …

She ran madly toward the barn. She did not know where she was going. She only knew that she must run and jump and shout, or she would explode.

Shep ran and jumped because Betsy did.

To these two wild creatures, careering through the air like bright-blown autumn leaves, appeared little Molly in the barn door.