Belles on Their Toes

by Frank B. Gilbreth

  The plumber and gas man finished their work by noon. We carried Tom’s tools and the reading material down into the cellar, and put the canaries in his room in the attic.

  Then Mother made chalk marks on the floor, from her diagram, showing us where she wanted the refrigerator, the table, and a cabinet for food, pans, and mixing bowls. We moved them into place, gave the room a scrubbing, and set up a sort of breakfast nook in the unoccupied half of the kitchen, where the stove used to be.

  Mother went through the motions of making an apple cake, in a dry run to familiarize herself with the location of everything. She scarcely had to move her feet at all. She could reach each appliance from a spot in the center.

  Apple cake, incidentally, was the only dish whose ingredients Mother thoroughly understood. She had grown up in a home where a Chinese chef ruled the kitchen. And she hadn’t had time, since her marriage, to learn much about cooking. But apple cake had been one of Dad’s favorite dishes, and Mother had memorized the recipe and just how it went together, so she could fix him midnight snacks when he worked late.

  When the newsreel crew arrived, we were dressed in our best clothes—especially Ernestine and Martha, who weren’t overlooking any bets in case Hollywood was hunting for new talent.

  While the crew was setting up lights in the parlor, the man in charge explained what he wanted.

  The idea was that Mother would be playing the piano, and we’d be grouped around singing. Mother would turn and ask a question, and we’d lick our lips and rub our stomachs. The scene then would shift to the kitchen, where Mother would be making something with a minimum of motions. And the finale would be in the parlor again, where we’d be eating what she had cooked.

  “Is there something you can make that won’t take too long?” he asked Mother.

  “I think so,” she said.

  “How about chicken chop-suey?” asked Bill.

  “Or blueberry pie?” said Frank.

  “I don’t believe there is a blueberry in the house,” Mother smiled.

  “There are apples, though,” said Ernestine, coming to her rescue.

  “Apples?” said Bill, as if he were reading a part in which he had been carefully coached. “That sounds simply capital.”

  “Bully,” said Frank in the same tone of voice. “I have a suggestion to make, Mother. Why don’t you make us an apple cake, for a change?”

  “Cease and desist,” Mother laughed. “The children are teasing me,” she explained. “I’m really not much of a cook. Apple cake is about the extent of my repertoire.”

  The newsreel man said he was sure Mother was being too modest, and that apple cake would be splendid.

  The scene in the parlor went fine. Of course the movies were silent, and everything was done in pantomime.

  Then we adjourned to the kitchen, and the men were impressed with the arrangement of the appliances.

  “I don’t see why you hesitated a minute about having pictures made of this,” the man in charge said. “Women are going to go crazy when they see this setup.”

  “Of course the stove isn’t what it should be, and neither is the refrigerator,” Mother explained. “I want a stove that stands up high, so you don’t have to bend over to see what’s in the oven. And I want a refrigerator that you don’t have to lean into.”

  The lights were adjusted, and Mother stood in the center of the working space. She lighted the oven. She pared and cored the apples with a gadget Mr. Yoyogo had made for her. She mixed and sifted the dry ingredients, and she greased the pan. So far, not more than four or five steps. The camera ground away.

  Then she opened the refrigerator door, leaned in, and picked up two eggs with one hand, and a bottle of milk with the other. Just as she started to bring them out, Fourteen appeared from under a table, and jumped. She landed on the small of Mother’s back.

  “Eyow,” Mother screamed. She threw her hands up over her head, and scattered dairy products from the breakfast nook to the butler’s pantry.

  “Cut!” roared the head of the newsreel crew. “What in the devil goes on here?”

  “Who did that?” Mother shouted accusingly to Frank and Bill. “It’s all right to tease, but Mercy Maude!”

  Fourteen strutted across the top of the refrigerator, obviously proud of herself. Mother looked at the cat as if trying to decide whether to wring her neck now, or wait until the company had gone.

  “I’m sorry, boys,” she said. “I should have known you wouldn’t have done it, at a time like this.”

  We couldn’t help but giggle. And the cameramen, who had been trying not to laugh, exploded.

  “Down, Fourteen,” said Mother, still a little indignant and making an ineffectual swipe or two at the cat. “Down I say, Sir.”

  Fourteen, who knew Mother well enough to be certain nothing would come from the swipes, continued strutting. Mother reached over the sink to the shelf where Tom kept his Quinine Remedy, and the cat jumped down and slunk out of the room.

  Mother started chuckling herself, and then she had an awful thought. A few years before, a newsreel company had taken some pictures of us at the dinner table in Nantucket. When they were released they were preceded by a caption saying: “The family of Frank B. Gilbreth, time-saver, eats dinner.” Then the action was projected at about ten times the normal speed, while the theater audiences howled.

  “I want you to promise me,” Mother said to the man in charge, “that you won’t show the part with the cat.”

  “Good night, lady, I know you’ve got eleven mouths to feed,” he protested. “I wouldn’t do you like that.”

  He kept his word, too.

  Ernestine and Martha mopped up the eggs and milk, and Mother started in again, at the point where she leaned into the refrigerator.

  Tom picked that particular Saturday to return early from West Orange. It always made him nervous, anyway, to be away from the younger children for too long, since he was convinced no one else looked after them properly. He also was sure that, as soon as he left the house, we turned his room and kitchen upside down, looking for candy or for future surprises that he might have hidden from us. Having left home earlier than usual, he apparently had decided that he’d better get back earlier, too, and check up on us.

  He came in the back door, just as Mother was putting her cake in the oven. His first glance at the rearranged kitchen confirmed everything he had suspected. He stood there glowering, until the final cut.

  “Oh, good afternoon, Tom,” Mother said guiltily as she stepped out of the work space.

  “What’s happened to my kitchen?” Tom demanded. “And who scared my cat so she won’t come into the house?”

  Mother wanted to get the cameramen out of there before Tom said any more about the kitchen being rearranged.

  “If you gentlemen will just step into the parlor,” she told them, trying to push them through the door.

  “And where are my birds at?” asked Tom. “You know I can’t do no cooking without my birds.”

  “I’ll tell you about it later, Tom,” Mother said firmly. “This way, gentlemen, if you please.”

  The cameramen, who were picking up their lights and other equipment, were frankly intrigued.

  “This is Tom, our cook,” Mother finally introduced him. “We couldn’t get along without Tom, could we, children?”

  “You’re going to have to get along without me,” Tom sulked, “if someone don’t help me move my stove and freeze box back acrost the room where they belong.”

  “All right, Tom,” Mother gave in.

  “I ain’t going to work all hemmed up like that,” Tom pouted, half apologetically. “I ain’t no midget, you know.”

  11. Lynching Party

  MOTHER’S COURSE RECESSED FOR the Christmas holidays. Anne arrived home from college December 19, and Al Lynch came to visit Ernestine the following day.

  Ernestine had spent the preceding month instructing us on how to behave in his presence.

  No one was to start e
ating at mealtimes until everyone was served. Frank was not to forget to help Mother into her chair. Martha was to refrain from discussing the cost of various items on the menu. Mother was to be sure Bob and Jane didn’t go around the house with their rompers unhinged. All of the boys were to give Al top priority in their bathroom.

  “All I’m asking,” Ern kept telling us, “is that for four days you try to make believe that we’re reasonably civilized.”

  It seemed like a fair enough request. Our first impression of Al had not been favorable. But first impressions often are unreliable, and if Ernestine had her heart set on impressing him, we thought the least we could do was cooperate.

  “We’re going to try to make everything go smoothly,” Mother promised her. “Now don’t you worry, dear.”

  Frank and Bill moved out of their bedroom, and doubled up with Fred and Dan. Anne and Martha helped Ernestine change the sheets on one of the beds, clean the room, and stow away radio parts, arrowheads, hockey sticks, some things in glass jars containing formaldehyde, and other miscellanea. The girls also cleaned the parlor, since Ern planned a buffet supper so that her Montclair friends could meet Al.

  We knew Al was driving down from college, and we expected he’d arrive in an old Model T, probably with writing on the body. We were sitting in the dining room, just finishing lunch, when a new, 1925 Packard roadster pulled into the driveway. There was no writing on it, except for the initials A.L., in six-inch letters on the doors. Behind the wheel, wearing the most luxurious raccoon coat we had ever seen, was Al.

  “That coat,” Martha whistled, “cost $600 if it cost a nickel. And goodness knows what a Packard costs.”

  “Don’t you ask him what it cost, either!” Ernestine warned.

  “You can count on me to act civilized,” Frank told Ernestine. “If you can land him, none of us will ever have to work.”

  “Get away from those windows,” begged Ernestine, who herself was peeking from behind a curtain. “Golly, look at that catsy car!

  “Everybody sit down,” Mother ordered. “Where are your manners?”

  We came back to the table and heard Tom go to answer the doorbell. A moment later he opened the door from the front hall into the dining room, and stuck in his head.

  “It’s for you, Princess,” he announced. “And from the coat he’s wearing, it’s a good thing nobody ain’t out hunting today in the royal woods.”

  “That will do, Tom,” Mother said sternly.

  “Henc, henc,” Tom wheeled. “I seen him before at Nantucket.”

  Ernestine glared at him and put her forefinger to her lips, but tried to laugh gaily.

  “When he came in,” said Tom, “I ast him for six cans of peas. He jumped and said, ‘Yes, sir, anything else?’ Henc, henc.”

  “It’s so amusing to have Tom around, don’t you think?” Ernestine said loudly. “Will you be good enough to excuse me for a minute, Mother dear? I’ll just run out and see who it is.”

  “Bring him right in,” Mother told her. “Perhaps he’d like some dessert.”

  Ernestine walked to the dining-room door. “Why it’s Al!” she exclaimed. “How delightful!”

  She closed the door behind her, and we heard some running in the hall.

  “I didn’t know he came from a wealthy family,” Anne whispered.

  “He wrote Ern about it,” Martha explained. “His father sold his produce business and bought some stocks.”

  Ern and Al appeared in the dining room with their arms around each other’s waists. Al had hung up his raccoon coat and porkpie hat, and there was a ring around his patent-leather hair, where the hatband had rested.

  “We’ll leave your suitcases and ukulele in the hall,” Ern told him. “I’ll see that our man takes them up to the guest room.” She glanced apprehensively toward the butler’s pantry, but Tom was fortunately in the kitchen, out of earshot.

  Just as at Nantucket, Al still seemed a little top collegiate. Only now he also seemed a little too opulent. His clothes were new, extreme, and expensive. His plus-eight knickers hung almost to his shoes, and a jeweled tie pin sparkled above the neck of his blue and white checked sweater.

  Al was smiling, and very handsome. He considered himself well in command of the situation.

  “Greetings and salutations, everybody,” he said. “Just one great big happy family, eh?”

  We said greetings and we guessed he was right. All the boys stood up—Ernestine had instructed them carefully on that.

  “I’d like you to meet my mother,” Ernestine said formally. “Mother, may I present Mr. Lynch.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Lynch,” said Mother. “We’ve all been looking forward to your visit.”

  “Meased to pleet you,” Al chuckled, wringing her hand. “Meased to pleet you. My friends call me Al.”

  “That’s nice,” Mother said, favoring him with what was meant to be a cordial smile. But she looked as if she wondered what his enemies called him; and as if, providing they were searching for a word, she might be able to supply it.

  “And this is Anne,” Ernestine said. “She’s just home from Michigan.”

  “Press the flesh,” said Al, pressing it. He didn’t exactly go into a clog dance when he put out his hand. But you had the feeling that he might. “Where have you been all my life, baby?”

  We thought Anne was going to tell him she had been hiding from him, but instead she swallowed and asked him how things were at Sagiwan Agricultural and Technical.

  “Fine and dandy,” Al boomed. “Couldn’t be better. I guess you read about how we massacred the football team from Wallace Teachers?”

  “Isn’t that,” Anne guessed, “the traditional Turkey Day classic?”

  “It sure is,” Al agreed. “You read about it, eh?”

  “It was splashed all over the front pages of the papers out in Michigan,” Anne said innocently. “I wish I had thought to save you the clippings.”

  Ernestine introduced him to the rest of us, and we all pressed the flesh. He pulled a chair up backwards to the table, and sat with his legs straddling the back.

  “Did you pipe the chariot?” he asked Ern, pointing nonchalantly, hitch-hiker fashion, with his thumb toward the window.

  “Why, no,” said Ern. “Where is it?” She went to the window. “Gosh, is that yours? Why, isn’t that a Packard?”

  “A little something the old man gave me for Christmas. Cost more than two thousand beans.”

  “Does that answer your question?” Anne asked Martha.

  “Isn’t that grand,” Ernestine exclaimed. But there seemed to be some doubt in her voice. Al in Montclair, with the family, didn’t seem quite so attractive as he had when they were alone in Nantucket.

  While he was eating the tapioca Mother served him, Al told us about how he had scored two touchdowns against Wallace Teachers; about how the old man was building a little twenty room place, that would cost seventy-five thousand beans, on the Niagara River; about how the Tau Tau Taus had stolen a small structure from a farmer’s backyard and had put it on the front porch of the Tri-Alph house, just before the guests arrived for the big annual homecoming swing-out.

  We listened, even supplying the necessary polite laughter. But we knew now, if ever there had been any doubt, that he wasn’t the man for Ernestine.

  Al and Ern decided to go riding in the Packard after lunch. Al was buttoned up snugly in his fur coat, and Ern not so snugly in her wool one. It was below freezing, and Ern was a little worried about whether she’d be warm enough in the open car.

  “It’s all right, baby,” Al assured her as they said good-by to us in the hall. “If you get cold I’ll give you part of my coat—the sleeves.”

  He threw his arms around her, to demonstrate, and then turned her loose, roared, slapped his knee, and actually nudged Mother.

  “I think, Ern,” said Mother wincing and looking as if she’d like to wrap Al’s ukulele around his ears, “that you’d better run upstairs and get a blanket.”

&nb
sp; Ern went and got one, and then they were off to the tune of a horn that played the first bar of “Jingle Bells.”

  “You can see for yourself she’s made a terrible mistake,” Martha told Mother indignantly. “You’re going to have to tell her so.”

  “I don’t think it’s fair to judge the boy on such a short acquaintance,” Mother said.

  “We’re trailing by one point,” Frank mimicked, “and we’re on the thirty-five-yard line.”

  “Thirty-five-yard stripe,” Martha corrected.

  “Stripe,” Frank agreed. “I call the signal for a drop kick, and the center …”

  “Pivot man,” said Martha.

  “And the pivot man looked back like he thought I was crazy. The stands are going wild.”

  “You stop that,” said Mother. “He’s Ernestine’s friend and he’s a guest, and that ought to be enough for all of us.”

  “It’s certainly enough for me,” Martha replied. “I’ll bet two thousand beans on that!”

  “Suppose he should become our brother,” Fred said. “How would you like that, Dan?”

  “A good question,” Martha agreed. “Now go up and wash your mouth out with soap.”

  We thought Anne, as the oldest, should try to help us make Mother see the light. But Anne merely grinned knowingly at Mother, who tried to avoid her glance.

  “We’re not going to discuss the matter any more,” Mother said. “I want you boys to take his suitcases upstairs, and I don’t want anybody to do anything to hurt Ernestine’s feelings.”

  Frank and Bill each took a sticker-spangled suitcase, and Fred followed with the ukulele.

  “If Dad were here,” Bill said as he deposited the bags at the foot of his bed, “he’d run that sheik out of the house and all the way over the state line.”

  “When he pulled that stuff about keeping her warm with his sleeves,” Frank agreed, “that’s when Dad would have swung at him. Mother doesn’t understand what things like that can lead to, the way Dad did.”