Belles on Their Toes

by Frank B. Gilbreth

  “In a little while,” Anne agreed sleepily. “I just want to get a little of what sun’s still left.” She lay down flat on her back. “Will someone make that dog stop shaking sand all over me?”

  Frank leaned over and whacked Mr. Chairman, but it didn’t do any good.

  “Nobody ever takes me out over my head,” Jack complained.

  “Where’s Martha?” Ernestine asked. “Out at the raft?”

  Frank nodded.

  “How does she look in Mother’s suit?”

  “Man, she looks grand,” Frank said enthusiastically. “You ought to see her.”

  “I’ll bet,” Ernestine smiled. “Miss Atlantic City of 1890.”

  “She’s out there,” said Frank, “with that tall, skinny man we saw on the boat.”

  Anne sat up suddenly, now wide awake.

  “Morton Dykes?” she said. “You mean he’s seen Martha in that outfit. My cow! What will he think of us now?”

  “What do you care?” Ernestine grinned. “Your feeling for him is dead, remember?”

  “Completely dead,” Bill echoed.

  “He doesn’t seem to mind the way her suit looks,” Frank said. “Every time she dives, he helps her back on the raft. You’d think she was crippled or something.”

  Anne shaded her eyes and looked out toward the float. It was easy to pick out Morton, because he stood almost a foot taller than anyone else. But at first she couldn’t spot Martha.

  “I don’t see anyone in Mother’s suit,” she said. “It ought to be conspicuous enough.”

  Then a trim, curvy, black-clad figure hit the springboard and went into a beautiful jackknife that was unmistakably Martha’s. A red head emerged from the water and a hand waved casually to the tall boy on the raft, who waved back vigorously. There was a wake of spray as Martha Australian-crawled back to the beach.

  “Where did she get that suit?” yelled Ernestine, who had seen the dive too. “What would Dad say?”

  “What will Mother say?” Anne asked.

  Martha blew water out of her nose, tossed the hair out of her eyes, and started up the beach to join us. Frank and Bill, clicking their tongues as loudly as if they were a couple of Decency Leaguers who had stumbled into a nudist camp, ran to her with towels. They made a great pretense of turning their heads away, and hiding their eyes with their hands.

  The beach wasn’t very crowded at that time of day, but those who were there were sitting up and watching.

  “You boys stop that,” Anne stage-whispered. “I’m ashamed of you!

  “Here, Martha, quick,” Frank said, pretending not to hear. “Drape these towels around you. If you hurry, the beach police man may not even notice.”

  “Besides,” said Bill, “we don’t want you to catch pneumonia.”

  “Would you two,” Martha inquired good naturedly, pushing them and the towels aside, “like a good punch in the nose?”

  She sank down nonchalantly in the sand between Anne and Ernestine, and attempted to even old scores with Mr. Chairman by shaking her wet hair at him. “Boy,” she said, “the water’s really the cats.”

  She didn’t seem to notice Anne’s and Ernestine’s frigid stares.

  “Saw a friend of yours out there,” she told Anne. “What a wet smack. You ought to see him in a bathing suit. More of a beanpole than ever.”

  Martha was wearing what appeared to be a tight-fitting black union suit. If you looked at it closely, you could tell it was the under part of Mother’s suit, with the legs and sleeves rolled up as far as they would roll. It wasn’t any more extreme than bathing suits other girls were wearing, but Anne and Ernestine were shocked almost beyond words.

  “Go back,” Anne finally whispered to her, “and get the outer half of it. The idea!”

  “And,” said Ernestine, “roll down those legs.”

  Jack still wanted Anne to take him out over his head, but she didn’t hear him.

  “I blush for you,” Anne told Martha. “What will Mother say?”

  “What have I done now?” Martha asked. “What’s this all about?”

  “You know perfectly well,” said Anne, “so don’t try to act so innocent.”

  “If you mean that sheik of yours, you don’t have to worry. He’s a wet smack who always wants to help you up on the raft. I’m wise to him.”

  “Let’s leave Morton out of the conversation,” said Anne.

  “I never saw anybody so jealous,” Martha complained. “Why I wouldn’t touch your ten-foot beanpole with a pole.”

  “He’s not my ten-foot beanpole,” said Anne. “And I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about that bathing suit.”

  “You said it was all right to wear it.”

  “I said it was all right to wear all of it. Not just the under half.”

  “You didn’t think I was going to wear the outer part too, did you?”

  “Of course we did,” Ernestine said. “You know perfectly well we did.”

  “So that’s what you meant when you said I’d look ridiculous.” Martha started to laugh. “I can see myself in that black tent, can’t you? I don’t wonder you thought everyone would stare at me. Why I couldn’t swim a stroke in that sea anchor—you should have known that.”

  “Martha,” said Ernestine. “Listen, Martha. It’s not decent. You shouldn’t walk out of your boudoir in that thing. Here, take this towel, dear.”

  “We could bury her with sand until everyone goes home,” Fred suggested hopefully.

  “It shows every curve,” Anne said. “It leaves nothing to the imagination.”

  “I’m getting tired of being bossed,” Martha hollered. “Always thinking about how you look; and never thinking about how you swim. Besides, there’s nothing to imagine.”

  Anne was patient. “You know Dad’s rules for girls in this family. Modesty, Martha. Modesty.”

  “But nobody wears two-piece suits any more. You think you’re flappers, but you don’t realize that times have changed. I’ve got a right to live my own life.”

  “You know the rules as well as we do,” Anne continued. “Two-piece bathing suits. Skirts at least to the knees, black stockings, and a minimum of skin showing. What would Mother say?”

  “I’ll bet,” said Martha, “she’d say times have changed and that I could wear the same kind of suit other girls are wearing. And I’ll bet, when she said it, you two would race each other downtown to get one-piece suits.”

  “That shows,” Anne announced, “how well you know Mother.”

  “Yes, sir,” Martha nodded, obviously deriving a good bit of satisfaction from the mental picture, “when she said it, it would be on your mark, get set, go.”

  “But she wouldn’t say it,” Anne insisted. “She’d die if she saw you like that.”

  “All right,” Martha surrendered. “You’re the boss, and I’ve got to do what you say. I’ll wear the rest of it. But I’m going to take a hem of at least a foot in the bottom. And I positively draw the line at black stockings this summer.”

  Martha got up and, disdaining the offer of towels, headed back toward the cottage. There was no doubt that Mother’s suit never looked better.

  “I think,” Ernestine told Anne, “that we could all do without black stockings. No one else wears them.”

  Anne nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. As Martha says, times do change. Even Dad probably would admit that. Probably.”

  “And you know she did look mighty cute in that one-piece job.”

  “I suppose she did,” said Anne. “In a childish sort of way, of course.”

  “That’s what I mean—in a childish sort of way. And it must be much easier to swim when you have just one piece.”

  “I guess it is,” Anne agreed. “Lord knows I don’t like the idea of two-piece suits any better than she does—if as well. But you know I can’t repeal any rules behind Mother’s back and—Hey, wait a minute. Who’s side are you on, anyway?”

  “Yours,” Ernestine said, “I suppose. I wasn’t goin
g to take off the outer part of my suit, honest! Just the stockings.”

  Anne shaded her eyes and looked out at the float again. The tall thin figure was still there.

  “Will you take me out over my head now, Anne?” Jack asked. “Nobody ever takes me out over my head.”

  “I guess so,” said Anne, putting on her bandanna and shaking the sand from between the two layers of her outfit.

  She took Jack by the hand and Ernestine took Bob. They started slowly into the water.

  6. Beating the Rap

  TOM COMPLICATED MATTERS ABOUT a week later by being haled into police court. Without offering any excuses for Tom, it might be pointed out that he was an Irishman of strong prejudices—particularly against the British.

  Tom’s mood had been black for several days because a nearby family had brought an English cook to Nantucket, and she had been welcomed into his group.

  From previous years, Tom knew most of the help in the houses near our cottage, and they’d meet in the afternoons on the beach. Partly because of his seniority and partly because he was always good company, Tom was one of the acknowledged leaders of the group. He was now torn between giving up the group altogether, or accepting the English woman. He was reluctant to do either.

  She was immensely stout, stately, quiet, and dignified. She spoke with a decided British accent, and wore a light green, one-piece bathing suit, neither of which Tom approved.

  Tom would join the group on the beach in the afternoons, but sit as far from the English woman as possible.

  “This island is being ruint by too many Limeys,” he’d tell his friends loudly. “We’re thinking of going someplace else, after this summer.”

  If a good-looking young girl walked past in a one-piece suit, Tom would announce:

  “Now there’s the kind that ought to wear a suit like that. The big fat ones ought to cover up all they can, or else stay home altogether.”

  The British cook, who could take a hint, ignored him. Tom didn’t want to be friends, but he hated to be ignored, and her snubs and accent had an accumulated effect of irritation.

  One day Tom got up off the sand and started for the water, just as the cook, who was standing, leaned over to unlace a sneaker. Her tremendously plump rear, hugged protestingly in the nether portion of the suit, emerged like a conch from the shell of her half skirt. Tom almost butted into it.

  She seemed to be having trouble with the sneaker, and Tom contemplated the vast expanse with loathing.

  On impulse, he picked up a sizable piece of driftwood and walloped her as hard as he could.

  The stick was wide and flat, and it met flesh with a sharp, resounding crack. The cook toppled over, ostrich fashion. Everyone—including Tom, who was as surprised as anybody—was too shocked to say a word. He stood there sheepishly, with the board dangling from his hand, and for one of the few times in his life he actually blushed. Both Frank and Bill, who were witnesses, swore to it.

  Finally, Tom dropped the board and helped her up.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “Even for a Limey, there ain’t no excuse for it. I seen it there, and I don’t know why I done it.”

  The cook was expressionless, as she got slowly to her feet, brushing sand out of her mouth and hair. She looked right through Tom, as if he didn’t exist.

  “Ain’t no excuse for it,” Tom repeated. “First time I ever done anything like that. Ast any of these people.”

  She still didn’t notice him.

  “Here,” said Tom, getting the stick, “I’ll lean over and you hit me. Hit me as hard as you can.”

  He put the stick in her hand and leaned over, closing his eyes and hunching his shoulders to absorb the impact of the blow. When it didn’t come, he straightened up again.

  The cook might not have gone to the police if he had let the matter drop right there, gone on into the water, and left her alone. But Tom, who was not in the habit of walloping ladies, was sincerely mortified, and wanted to make sure he had apologized sufficiently.

  “Ain’t no excuse for it,” he said. “I seen you stooping over and I seen the stick, and the first thing I knew …” The mental picture of the stick making contact with the quivering flesh came back to him, and he exploded.

  “Henc, henc, henc,” he cackled. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Henc, henc, henc.”

  That carved it. Finally he got control of himself, and started to apologies again, but the cook stalked away, looking for the law.

  Tom was summoned into court the next day, and Frank went along to bail him out, if necessary. The English cook was there, and so was most of Tom’s group.

  “I’m guilty,” Tom told the judge. “I got no excuse for what I done.”

  “Why did you do it, then?”

  “I don’t know. She leaned over, and she was big and fat across there, and I almost walked into it by mistake. Then I seen a stick and henc, henc, henc.”

  “Go on,” said the judge, who thought it was no time for levity. “And stop making that noise.”

  “Henc, henc, henc,” said Tom.

  Tom’s laugh, although much too nasal to be pleasant, was infectious, and some of his friends joined in.

  “Go on,” the judge demanded sternly.

  “Start from the beginning,” Frank whispered. “You’re laughing yourself right into jail.”

  Tom backed up and tried again, but he couldn’t get past the stick.

  “Does he always do that?” the judge asked Frank irritably.

  “He never seems to get past the stick,” Frank said.

  “Henc,” choked Tom. “I’m sorry your honor, but henc, henc, henc.”

  “Fifty dollars or fifteen days,” the judge said, “suspended on condition of good behavior for a year, and that you apologize to this visitor to our shores.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tom told the cook sincerely. “I honest didn’t mean to do it, and I honest didn’t mean to laugh about it.”

  “I wouldn’t let you off so easy,” the judge said, “except you’ve been coming to Nantucket for years and never have been in trouble before.”

  “I wouldn’t of done it,” Tom assured him again, “only she leaned over and …”

  The judge rapped his gavel. “Get him out of here,” he said to Frank, “before he gets to the part about the stick. Otherwise I might change my mind about suspending sentence.”

  Occasionally, even years later, after everyone in the family was in bed and all the lights were out, we’d hear Tom chuckling through his nose up in his bedroom. And we’d know that while he might be sorry, his regret was tempered with an intriguing mental image that would accompany him to the grave.

  THE REMAINDER of the two weeks before Mother’s arrival went comparatively smoothly. The economy budget stayed in balance. Ernestine had moderate success in improving the cooking. Martha looked swaddled, but eminently respectable, in Mother’s shortened bathing suit. Tom didn’t pick up any more sticks.

  There is no denying, though, that tempers were wearing thin. Anne’s pep talks were beginning to sound hollow, and fights were increasingly frequent. A steadying adult hand was needed, and most of us realized it.

  There was one fight, in which the whole family took part, that started when Frank complained about the frequency with which Ernestine placed clam chowder on the menu.

  Ernestine was especially fond of clams. Not only that, but we got the clams for nothing by digging them ourselves. Frank could either take clams or leave them alone, preferably the latter. He thought that clam chowder, four times in a single week, was too much to take, even under an austerity program. Sometime during the climax of the argument, Frank picked up his bowl of chow der and inverted it over Ernestine’s head.

  With clams draped over her ears, Ernestine arose silently, picked up her chowder bowl, and repeated the process on Frank. Fists started to fly in a mass battle that pitted the clam lovers against the clam endurers. Anne finally managed to restore peace, but not until all the chowder bowls had been emptied.
/>
  We didn’t have a bathtub or a shower at The Shoe, since Dad thought bathing in salt water was more healthful, so we had to put on our bathing suits and go down to the beach to wash our hair.

  By then, having let off steam, everyone was in a high if clammy good humor. There were considerable giggling, tripping, good-natured sand-throwing, and pinching as we ran down to the water. The neighbors, not being stone deaf, must have heard the threats of mutilation and death that had emerged a few minutes before from our cottage. In any event, they seemed astounded to see all of us unscathed, except for clams and potatoes in our hair, and apparently on the best of terms.

  Anne deducted twenty cents from each of our allowances, which meant that some of the younger children didn’t get any spending money for two weeks, and there wasn’t any repetition.

  Mother wrote daily, and her letters contained personal messages for each child. She could hardly wait to see Jack swim, and she was mighty proud he had learned. She certainly wouldn’t forget Martha’s bathing suit when she passed through Montclair. Ernestine shouldn’t worry about missing her college boards—it might be best anyway for her to take a post-graduate year at high school and start college after that, when the family would be a little more settled.

  Most important of all, the talks at London and Prague had gone well—very well, she thought. And she had plans for opening a motion-study school at our house in Montclair.

  All of us would be on the steps, waiting for Mr. Conway, the mailman, in the mornings. There was a calendar, with a red circle around Mother’s arrival date, hanging on the chimney in the dining room. Each morning at breakfast, Lillian, who was in charge of the calendar, marked off another day.

  The morning before Mother’s arrival, we washed and oiled the floors, waxed the furniture, polished brass, scrubbed windows, and trimmed the bayberry bushes in the front yard. Everybody, including Tom, pitched in, and when we were through the house was cleaner than it was in the beginning, is now, or probably ever shall be.

  We went for a quick swim, more for sanitary reasons than for relaxation, and then put on our best clothes. Everybody looked fine, even Martha in her hand-me-downs.