Chapter 23: Betty May-Married

I could hardly contain myself. It was February and I was the envy of all the girls in school, even Gladys Kemmerer, the judge's daughter and Marilyn Maples whose father owned the bank Pa had started to use.

They were jealous because I had an engagement ring and I was engaged to the most eligible boy in school, David Hansen. More than one of my classmates had acted like a cheap hussy around him. But from the day we finally got things straightened out, I knew in my heart that Davy was for me alone.

That doesn't mean that I didn't get jealous of Ruby Nelson vamping at him like Barbara Stanwyck in that movie "Baby Face." Ruby just threw herself at anything in pants. Not that Ruby ever went all the way, like Barbara Stanwyck did in the movie. The problem was that she was always making eyes at Davy and I wanted to slap her face. But I didn't. Davy took care of her, though, in the best way possible.

He told her, "Ruby, you're going to be real pretty, some day." He said it so nice and so friendly that she couldn't really take offense at him. But she sure got the message. So did the other girls. His face always lit up with a smile when he saw me for the first time of any day, at school or any place else.

Oh, I wanted to run up to him and throw my arms around him and hug him so much. We decided after a couple of close calls, we better not do any close hugging or other stuff that most of the other girls did with their boy friends. We didn't want to take chances. One time Davy told me that one of the many reasons he wanted me for his wife was because I was not only the prettiest girl in town, but I also set the highest standards. He told me that with pride in his voice. Then he said, "And on top of all that I love you, too." He was joking and serious at the same time.

There was also the time that trashy Elmer Davis tried to get fresh with me. He grabbed me where he shouldn't and I screamed at him and slapped him and he slapped me back. It didn't really hurt that much, he was just trying to show me who was boss.

Davy came around the corner of the hallway in school and saw the slap. He let out a yell and knocked some other kids out of the way and grabbed Elmer and lifted him up in the air and threw him down on the floor. Elmer actually bounced once. Then he just lay there and didn't move.

Mister Corbett heard the commotion and ran out of the school office and Grabbed Davy by the arm and yelled, "Get back." He knelt down and stood up and asked what happened. I said that Elmer hit me for slapping him for taking liberties with me and Davy saw him hit me and grabbed him and threw him to the floor before he could hit me again, harder. Some of the girls who saw what happened said the same thing happened to them too.

"Besides, Mister Corbett," Velma Smith said, "Elmer has done whatever he wanted with some of the other girls and we were all afraid to tell because he said he would hurt us bad. We don't all have Davy Hansen to protect us." Some of the boys looked away, embarrassed because they hadn't stood up to Elmer.

Davy just stood there, his nostrils flaring like a mad bull's. I hugged his arm and said, "Davy? Davy? Talk to me." He was beginning to scare me. His eyes blazed with a white-hot anger.

Slowly he turned his head and looked at me. "Betty May, are you all right?" I threw my arms around his waist and started to cry.

"Oh, Davy. You scared me." I sobbed.

"I'm sorry, Betty, but I saw him hurt you and I got mad." I felt him start to tense up again. I laid my head on Davy's chest and drew comfort from his touch.

Mister Corbett told us, "Please. Not on school grounds." He looked down his nose at me. He was like so many people in school systems all over. He was more worried about how it appeared for me to hug Davy on school property than he was about how bad Elmer Davis or I were hurt. Next week was graduation and we both would be gone from Woodman High. I had skipped a grade and we would graduate together.

Then two weeks after that we were to be married. Not even Elmer Davis or Mr. Corbett could take the glow of anticipation off my face for very long. That's what Mother called it, "a glow of anticipation." And that's what I felt like inside, like I was glowing. My mother and I were never confidants like some girls are with their mothers.

Looking back on it I can see that we both missed out on a lot. But my mother was unable to express her feelings. She and father were both very formal people. Oh, they could unbend and smile and tell a little joke, but it was impossible to get really close to them and confide in them and share my innermost feelings with them.

Davy's Ma was the opposite. I could tell her anything. She would listen; her head sort of cocked to one side and seem to memorize your face as she listened with her whole being just to you. She made everybody think they were very special to her. And I truly believe that is how she felt.

Anyway, They took Elmer to the hospital and the new chief of police came to our house to ask me what had happened. I told him and he thanked me and left. I had already told my parents and my father said one word when I described how Davy just grabbed Elmer and threw him to the floor.

"Good." my father said with emphasis. His eyes were blazing and I was afraid he was going to do something foolish or dangerous.

My mother smiled and said, "You have quite a catch in Davy. He's a very good young man." That was the first time she ever referred to Davy as anything other than a boy. I was startled and then realized that Davy, my Davy was indeed a man in every sense of the word.

We had gone out to "our farm" on weekends and I helped Davy and the carpenters build our house to my plans. Well, my plans as John drew them. At first Davy thought it was foolishness to want so many windows in a house. Since the house was facing east, I wanted the parlor to have windows on three sides so that I could watch the road and have plenty of visibility. The kitchen was on the south and west corner so I wanted windows on the south and west sides of the house so I could see out. Over the fields and the back yard.

"Well, we better not have any rocks around here," he grumbled to me.

"Rocks? What rocks? What are you talking about, David Lee Hansen?" He was making no sense to me at all. "What do rocks have to do with anything?"

"Well, this house is going to have more glass in it than wood at the rate you're going. And you know what they say about people who live in glass houses."

"They shouldn't throw rocks," we chorused together. We started laughing and I slapped his shoulder and told him to get back to work on our glass house. From that day on our house was called "The Glass House." Davy's Dad and their two new hired hands came over when things were slow at their place and added onto the work Davy and I did under John's supervision It took us a year to completely finish it all the way and it was worth it.

Pa Hansen was a little put off by all the glass, just like Davy had been. But as the whole structure neared completion, he finally nodded and agreed, "All that glass looks nice. But you better not throw any rocks at anybody." We dutifully laughed and went inside. Downstairs was the parlor. It ran across the whole front of the house. It was a forty feet by twenty feet room. Davy convinced Pa Hansen that it was a good idea by pointing out that with a partition we would have more bedrooms if we had that many children to warrant it.

It always embarrassed me to talk about having babies in front of men folk. With Davy, it was different. When I asked him how many babies he wanted he said flatly, "Six." Then he asked me, "And how many daughters do you want."

"Davy." I exclaimed, "I have more to do than just make babies."

"Not with me, you don't." he grinned.

"David Hansen, if you're going to talk dirty, I want to go back over to your folks house, right now. I will not have you saying such things to me." I wasn't as angry as I let on, but I wasn't going to let him get in the habit of talking like that around me. After all, it is up to the woman to set the moral tone in a marriage. People were always going to say that we were a good family.

Davy half smiled, "Aw, come on, Betty May, I was just joking, I didn't mean anything disrespectful of you." He did look sorry.

"All right, David, but you just remember that I am a virtuous woman." There. I said it. I referred to myself as a woman and not just a girl. Davy didn't even notice.

He just hugged me once and said, "I love you so much that I'm about to explode." Then we got back to work

The upstairs took a lot of work because of the three smaller bedrooms and the master bedroom. The Hansens' house was built single story European style. It started out as a cottage with two rooms and were added on to as was needed. There were no closets or built ins. Wardrobes were placed where necessary. I wanted built in closets large enough to hold clothes on hangers so that we wouldn't have so much folded away. Our bedroom was fifteen by twenty-five feet with a side room for a dressing closet. That turned out to be a good idea because my inventive Davy, with John's help, turned it into a complete bathroom, with a big cast iron claw footed tub.

We had another bathroom downstairs, complete with a smaller tub and a shower spigot over one end. That was so Davy could wash off all over fast when he came in from the fields. Davy and Pa also built a small room over the down stairs bath where they put a hundred gallon hot water tank that a builder had ordered and half paid for, then went broke. It had been sitting around the hardware store for a couple of years so they were glad to unload the "white elephant" on us.

The sink downstairs had a hand pump that supplied all the kitchen needs. However the shower on the porch was supplied by the windmill two hundred feet up the hill from the house. Davy and his father were the two most inventive men I ever knew. Davy even promised me we'd have electric lights instead of those Coleman lamps that burned white gas and were so uncomfortably bright. They were also a little dangerous. Although we never had any trouble, a couple of families were burned out by accidents with their Colemans.

All told, we had what was truly our dream house. The barn and the out buildings were not all that important to me, but in the house, I was the boss. Davy might build me anything he wanted, but it didn't come into the house unless I agreed. The only exception to that was Dog. That ugly beast went where Davy went except when Davy was to be gone over night. Then he slept on the back porch where he could guard me. He was ugly as a dog could get. He was also the biggest dog I had ever seen and he adored Davy. As for me, he permitted me to feed him. Oh, after a while he wanted me to pet him, but he was still Davy's dog all the way.

Ma Hansen and my mother got their heads together and made curtains to go in our new house. There were also light drapes that could be drawn at night for privacy. All the windows upstairs had nice heavy curtains. I laughed and said that I bet there wasn't too much curtain material left in all of Woodman County. In a very rare moment of humor, Mother said, "Well, we were talking about maybe going to Enid if we needed any more." It was so rare that my mother made a joke that I laughed a bit harder than was warranted.