Belles on Their Toes

by Frank B. Gilbreth

  The charts were in the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms, upstairs. They listed duties such as washing the dishes, making the beds, combing hair, brushing teeth, weighing ourselves, listening for fifteen minutes a day to French and German language records on the phonograph, sweeping, and dusting.

  Dad had things broken down to such a fine point that Lillian, who wasn’t tall enough to reach table tops and high shelves, dusted the legs and the lower shelves. Ernestine did the tops and the high shelves.

  We decided we could eat much more cheaply if we cut out roasts and steaks, except perhaps on Sundays. Ernestine was a good shopper, so she would plan the meals, stressing such items as frankfurters and baked beans, and she would do most of the buying. We already got our canned goods from wholesalers, so we couldn’t save there.

  Ernestine would also try to teach Tom the necessity for putting such ingredients as baking powder into the corn muffins, and of adding water to fresh vegetables before placing them on the stove.

  Martha, who was the most efficient of all of us and could keep her money the longest, was put in charge of the budget. She also would supervise the packing of clothes for Nantucket.

  We talked about the matter of college. Anne had just completed her sophomore year at Smith. Dad wasn’t a college man himself, but had believed that two colleges were better than one. At Dad’s suggestion, Anne had made plans to transfer that fall to The University of Michigan.

  Ernestine had graduated from high school the night before Dad died. She was registered at Smith and was to start taking her college board examinations in a couple of days.

  We knew Mother wouldn’t allow either of the girls to change plans. She insisted that somehow or other she was going to send all of us through college. Dad had wanted that.

  As for our getting odd jobs to contribute to the income, maybe that would come later. For the time being, at least for the summer, all the older ones would be needed at home.

  “I don’t have to tell you,” Anne said, looking significantly at the bigger children, “that a lot depends on how things go this summer.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone to adopt me, would you, Dan?” Fred asked. Fred was seven and he and Dan, who was one year younger, were inseparable.

  “Heck, no,” said Dan. “I wouldn’t let anyone adopt me, would you, Fred?”

  “Where did you ever get an idea like that?” Anne asked. “Nobody’s going to be adopted, especially if everything goes smoothly while Mother’s gone.”

  By the time that Tom announced lunch was ready, all of the duties had been allocated and the new economy budget was in balance.

  It was Ernestine’s turn to bring in the food. She eyed askance a leg of lamb that she carried in from the kitchen. It was burned almost black and was festooned with charred tomato halves, which looked as if they had become a part of the lamb—a part that needed lancing and bandages.

  Ernestine was the only member of the family who didn’t get along well with Tom. They had had a running feud that had started years before, when she had proudly presented him a picture of herself and he had announced that he intended to hang it in the pantry as a rat repellent.

  Now, without saying anything, but with the face of a martyr who intended to cooperate if it meant poisoning all of us, Ernestine placed the platter in front of Anne.

  Anne was caught off guard. “What,” she shouted in genuine alarm, “is that? Get it out of here quickly, you hear me? And tell Tom no one is in the mood for his jokes.”

  “It is supposed to be a leg of lamb,” Ernestine said through pursed lips.

  “How do you know?” Anne challenged distrustfully.

  “I asked him and that’s what he said. Leg of lamb.”

  Anne turned the platter around, studying the contents from all angles. “Any lamb with a leg like that,” she said, “had better see a veterinarian.”

  “I’m beginning to think we should have kept the cook and got rid of that man,” Ernestine announced.

  “Hush!” Anne warned. “He’ll hear you.”

  “I don’t care if he does.”

  Tom appeared red faced and furious at the butler’s pantry door.

  “You don’t, eh,” he shouted, reaching behind him to untie his apron. “All right, just for that I quit.”

  Tom sometimes quit as often as three times in a single day, so the dramatic announcement didn’t have too much effect.

  “I don’t have to work here, you know,” he continued. “I ain’t no slave.” He took off the apron and waved it in Ernestine’s face.

  “No one wants you to quit,” Anne told him. “We all know we couldn’t get along without Tom, don’t we, Ernestine?”

  Ernestine caught Anne’s threatening glance and finally nodded reluctantly. “I suppose so,” she said.

  “There,” Anne smiled sweetly. “You see?”

  “What’s the matter with the lamb?” Tom asked, somewhat mollified.

  “Nothing,” Anne replied, “except that it seems just a mite well done. We like our lamb just a little rarer.”

  “It’s lamb rangoon,” said Tom, as if that clinched the argument. “And lamb rangoon has to be well done.”

  “Well why didn’t you say so?” Anne asked. “That explains everything.”

  “Nobody never gives me a chance to explain nothing around here, that’s why,” Tom mumbled, as he disappeared into the kitchen, tying his apron back on. “You work and slave to make them a special dish like lamb rangoon and then they try to fire you. After seventeen years with the family, too.”

  “It still looks like something that had better not be touched until the coroner arrives,” Ernestine whispered.

  “Lamb rangoon,” Anne muttered. “I’ve seen rubber boots that looked more appetizing.” Then, realizing that as the oldest she was setting a bad example, she started carving, and added: “I’ll bet it’s good, though.”

  “Yummy,” said Martha sarcastically.

  “We’ll try to get the cooking straightened out before Mother comes back,” Anne promised. “Come on, now. Get the rest of the food, Ernestine. And bring in some cold cereal, will you, for those who don’t want lamb.”

  BILL DEVELOPED a high fever and broke out with spots that afternoon. By the time the doctor arrived, Ernestine and Martha were feverish and pimply. Ernestine wanted to cover herself with cold cream and powder, and still take her examinations, but the doctor put her to bed. By noon the next day, all eleven of us were broken out and bedridden.

  3. Troubled Waters, and Oil

  NO CATASTROPHE EVER BEFELL any of us but that Tom, sometime in the distant past, had experienced the same trouble, only more so.

  If one of our boys stepped on a nail, Tom would allay fears of lockjaw by describing how he once had stepped on a spike that went all the way through his foot and into his ankle. Not only that, but he’d take off his shoe and show you the scar.

  When Bill broke out with spots, Tom was the first to discover them and hurriedly ordered Bill to bed.

  “But I don’t feel sick,” Bill protested. “Just scratchy.”

  “Don’t tell me nothing,” Tom commanded. “You’re sick as a dog.”

  “Just scratchy,” Bill repeated, scratching himself.

  “I tole you oncst, and I ain’t going to tell you again,” Tom said. “Get to bed, now. And if you don’t stop scratching yourself you’ll be out of the Club for a hundret years.”

  Only members of Tom’s Club were admitted to the kitchen after supper. This was true even before he became cook, because Tom always had presided over the kitchen once the day’s duties were done.

  For Club members in good standing, Tom sometimes would play the harmonica, pop corn, distribute candy, and perform card tricks. Those who were out of the Club could come no closer to the activities than the back hall. The door was left open, and they were allowed to watch, but not to eat or otherwise participate.

  The older children, while professing scorn for Tom’s Club, frequently were found in the kitchen a
fter supper—if they were fortunate enough to be in his good graces. To the younger ones, banishment from the Club was Siberia’s steppes.

  Tom’s minimum excommunication, when meting out expulsion, was for a hundred years. Actually, this meant only about fifteen minutes, because Tom’s heart was soft. The maximum, anathema, was for a thousand years and four days. This might mean an entire evening, although the sentence was often mitigated if one could manage to look repentant enough.

  After Bill had climbed into his pajamas, Tom called Anne to break the news.

  “Oh, Lord,” Anne groaned. “That’s the last straw! Just when I was beginning to think things might go smoothly.”

  “It’s all right, Anne,” Bill assured her. “I don’t feel sick.”

  “I hear you scratching under them covers,” Tom warned him. “I ain’t deef, you know, I ain’t blind. I tole you twicst, and I ain’t going to tell you again. Mind now!”

  “I better call the doctor,” Anne sighed.

  “I could tell you how to dose him,” Tom said, “but…”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Bill shouted. “I know about your doses.”

  “Remember what Dad told you about dosing them,” Anne said.

  “I remember.” Tom’s tone was injured. “I could cure Bill, but I got my orders. I can take a hint.”

  Anne leaned over and studied Bill’s spots. “It looks like a rash or the hives to me,” she said.

  “Hives,” Tom grunted. “He’s sick as a dog, I tell you. Of course, he ain’t as sick as I was oncst when …”

  “He ate some of that burned rangoon—” Anne stopped quickly. “Maybe he ate something that didn’t agree with him.”

  “Didn’t agree with him?” Tom asked. And then accusingly to Bill: “Have you been sneaking out and eating down street again? You don’t know what goes into the food they give you at them drug stores.”

  Bill shook his head.

  “Anyway, it ain’t his stomach,” said Tom. “I know what it is, all right, but your father give me my orders, so I dassent tell you.”

  “He gave them to you the time we had the measles and you said it was scarlet fever, didn’t he, Tom?” Bill said.

  “That was the time,” Tom conceded.

  “Heck, anyone can make a mistake like that, eh Tom?” Bill asked. Bill was one of Tom’s defenders, and usually in the Club.

  “You scared Mother half to death,” Anne said accusingly.

  “I still ain’t sure it wasn’t that, neither,” said Tom.

  Anne went to telephone Dr. Burton, and Tom paced the floor of the room shared by Frank and Bill.

  “Of course,” he muttered for the benefit of those of us who had assembled to see Bill’s spots, “I don’t know nothing about it. I’m stupit, I am. I’m so stupit that even though I seen a hundred cases just like it in the war, I don’t know what it is. I seen them dying like flies from it.”

  “Is it really bad?” Bill asked. “Will everybody catch it?”

  “You’ll catch it, you bold thing you, if you don’t stop scratching. You’ll be out of the Club for a hundred years.”

  “Not that!” Ernestine protested in mock terror. “Anything but that.”

  Tom pretended not to hear. But there was no doubt that Ernestine—or the Princess, as Tom sometimes called her with an exaggerated courtesy—was out of the Club for a thousand years and four days.

  Tom resumed his pacing and mumbling. “I was an orderly in the horsepittle for ten months during the war for nothing. Had my eyes closed all the time. Sure I did.”

  The war to which Tom alluded was the Spanish-American. If, as Tom frequently alleged, he actually had served as a hospital orderly, medicine had progressed considerably since those days. For Tom placed all his reliance on quinine and castor oil. And we weren’t completely sure he knew that the practice of bleeding the patient had been pretty generally discontinued.

  What was good medicine for humans, he believed, was equally beneficial for animals. Tom was a collector of pets, both wild and domesticated, much to the disgust of Dad. Dad used to complain that feeding almost a score of human mouths was more than any white man’s burden, and that it was an outrage to be required to give sustenance to the fauna which followed Tom home or begged handouts on the kitchen window sill.

  Let one of Tom’s pets show up with a warm nose, sagging beak, coated tongue, fetid breath, or blood-shot eye, and Tom would swiftly mix a dose of castor oil and Quinine Remedy, add a bit of sugar to make the dose more palatable, and force the solution through the mouth or down the bill of the debilitated creature.

  None of them ever died or seemed to hold a lasting grudge. But Tom’s cat, Fourteen—Tom numbered his cats progressively—would get down on her belly and start sneaking toward the back door every time she saw him reach up over the kitchen sink, where he kept the Quinine Remedy.

  Tom’s diagnoses for persons other than himself were varied, uninhibited, and sometimes exotic. But when he was sick himself, he always diagnosed the ailment as pleurisy, regardless of whether the symptoms were a bleeding nose or a swollen foot. On these occasions, he would send out for the Quinine Remedy’s large economy flagon, and it never failed him.

  ERNESTINE AND MARTHA were in bed too by the time Dr. Burton arrived. Whenever the doctor came to our house, Tom was the medical orderly again. He said “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and he sucked in his stomach. Dr. Burton knew of Tom’s claims of medical experience, and assured himself of Tom’s cooperation by treating him as a learned colleague in the profession.

  “What is it?” Anne asked anxiously, as Dr. Burton leaned over Bill’s bed. “Tom keeps hinting that it’s something serious.”

  “He says he’s seen them die like flies from it,” Bill said. “But all it does is itch.”

  “It’s obvious, eh Tom?” said the physician.

  “Yes, sir. Only I wouldn’t tell them nothing because Mr. Gilbreth made me promise.”

  “Anyone can see it’s chicken pox. No need to make an examination, would you say so, Tom?”

  “Is that all,” Anne sighed.

  “That’s what I thought, sir,” said Tom. “Either that or small-pox, I wasn’t sure which.”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Dr. Burton told Anne.

  “I’m not worried,” said Anne, glaring at Tom, “now that I know it isn’t leprosy or cholera.”

  “You’ll all be up and around again in a few days,” Dr. Burton assured her.

  “What do you mean, all?” Anne asked. “Chicken pox is a children’s disease, isn’t it?”

  “Have any of you had chicken pox?”

  “I guess not,” Anne admitted.

  “Then you’ll all get it. But Tom will take good care of you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tom beamed.

  “I’ll have some medicine sent around,” the doctor continued. “And Tom, I’ll count on you to see they keep regular.”

  “I’ve got just the thing,” said Tom, and it was obvious that Dr. Burton’s medical standing had skyrocketed in his estimation.

  “Castor oil,” moaned Bill.

  “A little castor oil never hurt anyone,” Dr. Burton agreed.

  “Did you hear that, Tom?” Bill said, grasping at a straw. “Dr. Burton says a little.”

  “That’s right,” the doctor cautioned. “Not too much.” He turned to Tom. “I suppose you’ve had chicken pox?”

  “No, sir,” said Tom. “When I was a kid I had something that looked just like it. Some people even said it was chicken pox. But it turned out to be …”

  “Pleurisy,” Dr. Burton nodded sagely.

  “That’s the only disease that ever give me any trouble.”

  THE NEXT DAY, when it became apparent that all of us had chicken pox, Anne had Tom move all the boys’ beds into Frank’s and Bill’s room, and all the girls’ beds into Mother’s and Dad’s room. The rooms were adjacent, and by leaving the door open Anne could supervise both wards from her bed.

  Anne had no inte
ntion of letting any mass epidemic interfere with the family routine. She had each of us get up long enough to wash, remake our beds, weigh ourselves, and make the notations on the process charts.

  We got the phonograph from the boys’ bathroom—we usually listened to the language records while we were taking baths or otherwise occupied in what Dad called periods of unavoidable delay—and set it up in the doorway between the two wards. We played French and German records for fifteen minutes. Then Anne got up and looked at the charts, to make sure everyone had done what he was supposed to do.

  “That’s fine,” she sighed as she crawled back into bed. “Now we can enjoy our poor health. And a pox on the first person who gets me up again.”

  None of us felt very sick. We sang for a while, with the boys’ ward carrying the melody and the girls’ ward an alto. Sometimes, to get the song just right, the boys would sing their part alone, and the girls would sing theirs alone, and then we’d try them together. We sang “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” “Oh, Gee, Oh, Gosh, Oh, Golly, I’m in Love,” “Last Night on the Back Porch,” “You’ve Got to See Mama Every Night or You Can’t See Mama at All.”

  Then we played some of the new dance records and sang along with them. “What’ll I Do?” “All Alone by the Telephone,” “Charlie My Boy,” “Limehouse Blues,” and “The Prisoner’s Song.”

  We didn’t mind being sick, and we hoped Mother wouldn’t find out and worry about us.

  After a while we could hear the sound of a spoon clinking against a glass down in the kitchen, and we knew Tom was mixing castor oil with orange juice and sugar. All of the boys, from Frank on down the line, immediately feigned deep sleep.

  Tom brought the castor oil upstairs, one glass at a time. The stirring grew progressively louder as he mounted the back stairs and walked through the upstairs hall to the wards.

  When he arrived with the first dose, the boys were snoring. “You don’t fool me none,” Tom told them. “I can see them eyes winking. I’ll be up with your medicine in a few minutes.”

  He knocked noisily on the open door of the girls’ ward, with his head modestly averted. Tom always made an elaborate ceremony of knocking before entering one of the girls’ rooms. He thought that the knocking was a waste of time, and alleged that he had, at one time or another, changed all of their diapers. But Dad and Mother insisted on it. When Tom did, by mistake, happen on one of the girls who was not fully dressed, he never could understand—or made believe he couldn’t understand—the ensuing commotion. “That’s all right,” he’d say, while the girl dived shrieking into a closet. “It don’t embarrass me none. I don’t mind. I don’t mind.”