Belles on Their Toes

by Frank B. Gilbreth

  He cleared his throat and started to call the roll. All the way from the “A’s” down to the “G’s,” Mother’s eyes roved the auditorium, searching for Bill. She was sitting on a platform, in a chair next to the professor’s table.

  “Gibbes,” said the professor.

  “Here.”

  “Gilbert.”

  “Here.”

  “Gilbreth.”

  There was an awkward pause, while Mother blushed and stopped searching. The professor looked up, cleared his throat again, this time with disapproval, and repeated loudly, “Gilbreth?”

  A number of Bill’s friends sensed the situation simultaneously, and thought they had better come to the rescue.

  “Here,” a dozen voices answered from all corners of the room.

  The professor put down his roll book and looked bleakly at Mother. He didn’t say so, but she gathered the look was intended to convey that he had to put up with a great deal, not the least of which was having Bill as a student.

  He glared at his audience, seeking to find the offenders who had answered to Bill’s name.

  “There seems to be,” he said sarcastically, “a good many Gilbreths here today.”

  “The whole family,” Mother announced brightly, regaining her poise and favoring him with her warmest smile. “That’s nice.”

  The professor, who hadn’t seen as much of Bill that semester as he thought he should have, didn’t think it was nice at all. He licked his pencil and made a show of marking a large zero in his grade book, opposite Bill’s name.

  “Goldsmith,” he said precisely, continuing the roll.

  Bill spent the afternoon and night with Mother, so he didn’t see any members of the class during the remainder of the day. Mother didn’t mention to him that she had spoken to his group, or that she knew he had cut the class. She thought he was old enough to make his own decisions, and that it wouldn’t give him a sense of responsibility if she seemed to be checking up on him.

  She did spend a good deal of time, though, telling him how she was studying the motions of physically disabled persons, so as to help them find jobs in industry. Bill was interested, and he and Mother looked over her notes and her photographs and diagrams of the project.

  Bill was a little late, but present, for the lecture class the next morning. He slid into his seat just as the professor finished calling the “C’s” in the roll book, and he was well settled by the time the professor reached the “G’s” and finally Bill’s name.

  When the professor had run through the list, he told the class he was going to give a written quiz.

  “I’m sure all of you must have learned a great deal from our visitor of yesterday,” he said. “So today I’m going to ask you to write a little summary giving the high points of the talk.”

  Bill squirmed uncomfortably, and wished he had cut class again. He nudged the boy sitting next to him.

  “Who,” Bill asked out of the corner of his mouth, “did the old fool drag over here yesterday?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No, I wasn’t here yesterday. I overslept.”

  “You overslept,” the boy mimicked. “It was your own mother, you stupid jackass.”

  “Awk,” Bill grunted, sinking down in his chair and wishing he could continue through the floor.

  Everyone else in the room was writing. You could hear the pens scratching and papers rustling as pages were turned. Bill hoped no one would notice that he alone was sitting there doing nothing.

  He nudged his neighbor again.

  “Would you mind telling this stupid jackass,” Bill apologized, “what my mother talked about?”

  “Motion study of the disabled.”

  “Thanks,” Bill grinned. He started writing, too.

  20. Pygmalion

  ALMOST EVERY YEAR THERE was a graduation from high school, a graduation from college, and a wedding. By the middle 1930s, all us through Lillian were married and had homes of our own. Most of the married ones had children.

  Fred and Dan were in college, Jack and Bob were in high school, and Jane was about to enter the tenth grade—the first year of high school under the system then standard in Montclair.

  There was a New Deal in the country, and a New Deal at our house, where Jack was in charge when Mother was away.

  The New Deal at home was brought about principally by Tom’s absence. He was in a hospital, suffering from a heart ailment, and the warmth and excitement had evaporated from the kitchen. All rules about feeding and playing with Sixteen, his current cat, and about keeping out of the kitchen, except on Tom’s special invitation, had been suspended.

  An energetic colored woman now did the cooking, and as much of the housework and dishes as Mother would allow.

  Mother always has been convinced that anyone who works for her is terribly imposed upon. So much so that sometimes it is difficult to tell who is working for whom.

  As a result, it was a race between Mother and the energetic maid to see who could make the beds first and sweep the upstairs in the mornings. Since both were early risers, the race often ended in a dead heat, with Mother handling one side, and the maid the other, of a bed that was still warm.

  “You have enough to do without making the beds,” Mother would say when the maid urged her to sit down and relax for a few minutes. “This leaning over is just what I need. I like to get a little exercise before I leave for the city.”

  At supper time, Mother would whisk away a dish as soon as one of the children had taken his last mouthful, and carry it out to the butler’s pantry to wash and dry it, while the maid was finishing her meal in the kitchen. When the child would go to put his fork down, there wouldn’t be any place to put it except the table cloth, so he’d have to hold it in his hand until Mother came back.

  “The maid may want to go to a movie or something,” Mother would explain, while she collected the silverware. Between the colored woman and Mother, the children were relieved of all the chores that the rest of us had had to do in the past.

  Now that there were no young children in the house, there was no need for a system under which each child was responsible for a younger one, or for the process charts in the bathrooms. The German and French language records had worn out or been broken, and Mother never replaced them.

  When the married members of the family dropped in to visit, they didn’t hesitate to tell Mother that they never had had things that easy when they were growing up, and that the three youngest ones were being spoiled.

  But Mother, bouncing a grandchild on her knee and playing peekaboo, would reply that she wasn’t sure this little fellow was being raised just right, either. He had on too many clothes, for one thing, and she didn’t think she liked his color. Those new formulas might be all right, but …

  We knew it was an act, because Mother herself always laughed at meddling grandmothers, and she really believed that the new formulas were resulting in bigger, stronger babies. But she managed to get across her point.

  We began to suspect, while watching how Mother was raising her three youngest, that she never had entirely approved of many of Dad’s systems of regimentation. Some of them had been necessary because the family was so large. Perhaps she had allowed the others to remain in effect, until they stopped of their own accord, because she didn’t want to overrule Dad.

  Mother seemed, if possible, to grow closer than ever to her three youngest children. But we thought the house must seem empty of children to her. She was bound to realize that Jane would be away at college in a little more than three years, and that after that there would be no one left at home.

  We wondered what she’d do in the big, drafty house that held so many memories. She couldn’t stay there by herself, of course. Yet we felt sure she’d never be willing to sell it. And she had said repeatedly that she wouldn’t live in anyone else’s home—even the home of one of her children.

  Frankly, we were worried about Mother.

  THE FOUR YOUNGEST BOYS wanted to be s
ure Jane would be a social success when she entered high school. The last of the Gilbreths, they thought, should set a record for popularity that would stand at least until the grandchildren came along.

  The bobby sox era was making its debut, after a decade of formal afternoon dresses, spike-heels and kinky permanent waves. The hepcat and the square were about to take their places at opposite ends of the terpsichorean scale, and it was possible to cut a rug without having either carpet or scissors.

  The boys wanted to be sure that Jane was among the first on the bandwagon.

  In many respects, Jane was Martha all over again. She was tall for her age, didn’t realize she had developed a figure, and was content to wear Lillian’s hand-me-down dresses and shoes. Also she had a habit of flopping untidily into chairs and spreading her knees as wide as a chestnut tree.

  But she was beginning to be interested in boys, and she listened willingly to the suggestions of Fred, Dan, Jack and Bob.

  Fred and Dan, who as college men spoke with some authority, were the first to start grooming Jane for high school. During the summer, they began telling her what sort of clothes she should buy for her fall wardrobe.

  “Those things you wear are all out of date,” Fred said. “Only sad apples wear them any more. You want to get saddle shoes, sweaters and skirts, and those socks that just come to your ankles.”

  “I’m not going to dress like a little girl,” Jane complained. “I can dress up more than that when I go to high school, can’t I, Mother?”

  “The boys usually know what they’re talking about,” Mother said doubtfully.

  “Lillian has a silk dress she said I can have, and I thought I’d get some others like that,” Jane pouted.

  “You listen to what we’re telling you,” Dan ordered. “Those silk dresses are out. The college girls are wearing what Fred says, and you want to be one of the first in high school to dress that way.”

  “The first impression you make in high school decides whether you’re popular,” Jack agreed. “The boys from the upper classes come down by the front door and give the new girls the once-over.”

  Jane also was to let her blonde hair grow and fix it page-boy. She was to stop that business of flopping into chairs as if she were playing a game of statues, and she wasn’t to use any make up except lipstick.

  Fred studied her face critically.

  “Dark red lipstick,” he said. “That’s the color for you. Right, Dan?”

  “Dark red,” Dan agreed. “Not too much of it.”

  “But Mother said I could wear all the make-up I wanted to when I got to high school,” said Jane. “I don’t know about all this little girl stuff. Did Mother put you boys up to this?”

  “I didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Mother protested. “I don’t approve of make-up, but everyone I’ve seen in high school paints like an Indian. If that’s the way you want to look, it’s your face. See if I care!”

  “What everyone else does in high school is old stuff,” Fred explained. “That’s what we’re trying to tell you. Do you want to be a sad apple?”

  Jane said she guessed that if she had to be any sort of an apple, she’d rather not be a sad one.

  Dan then showed her how she should sit down. He walked mincingly but, with assumed nonchalance to a chair, turned around with a swing of his hips, rose on his tiptoes, sat down daintily with his knees together, and flounced as he adjusted an imaginary skirt.

  “It’s that kind of jump you give at the end that gets them,” he explained. “You see you act and dress casually, as if you didn’t know men existed. But really you’re on the ball all the time. And little things like that jump at the end emphasize all of a girl’s best assets.”

  Jane tried it, but the boys were far from satisfied. She tried it again, with no more success.

  “Don’t jump like someone left a hatpin in the chair,” Dan winced. “I’ll swear, I believe you’re hopeless. Don’t you know how to do a feminine flounce?”

  “I did just like you did,” said Jane, beginning to lose patience. “You jumped like something was in the chair, too, didn’t he, Mother?”

  Mother, sitting in a corner, pretended she was absorbed in a book, and didn’t answer.

  “I’m not supposed to know exactly how to do it,” Dan shouted. “All I can do is give you the general idea. For Lord’s sake, don’t girls have any natural instinct about how to do things like that?”

  “If they do,” Jane said hotly, “it’s the first time I ever heard about it. And I’m not going to listen if you holler at me. And I’m not going to dress that way, either.”

  She stalked across the room, picked up a magazine, sat down by Mother, and—there was no doubt about it—flounced as she angrily adjusted her skirts.

  “That’s it, Jane,” Fred shouted. “Just like that.”

  “Just like what?” Jane sulked. “You give me a pain in the neck, all of you.”

  “What you did just then,” said Fred, “when you fixed your skirts.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Jane, “except this.” She flounced again.

  “Solid,” Dan agreed.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so. Anybody knows how to do that.” She flounced a third time. “The way Dan showed me, you’d need a built-in pogo stick. I thought you were supposed to see light between me and the chair.”

  Somewhat pleased with herself, she rejoined the boys for further instruction.

  Jane already knew most of the new dance steps, so her brothers weren’t worried about that. But they spent a good deal of time teaching her dance floor behavior.

  The boys thought that the most important formula for popularity at a dance was knowing how to act when someone cut in. They said they had seen many a girl who was good looking and a beautiful dancer, but who was stuck most of the night because she had given the impression she didn’t like to be broken.

  “It boils down to this, and I’ll admit it’s an art,” said Dan. “You’ve got to make the boy you’re dancing with think you’re sorry that someone is cutting in; and you’ve got to make the boy who’s cutting in think you’re glad.”

  Jane said that sounded insincere to her, and she believed a girl always should be sincere, didn’t Mother.

  Mother thought that one was safe enough.

  “Yes indeed, dear,” she said, coming out from behind her book. “It’s a mistake to be hypocritical.”

  “Of course you should be sincere,” Fred agreed. “But you can be glad and sorry at the same time, can’t you? Like when you graduated from junior high?”

  “Sorry to leave those infants?” Jane laughed condescendingly. “I was only glad then. But I guess I see what you mean.”

  “Sure you do,” Fred soothed her. “You’re a smart chick.”

  “Okay,” Jane surrendered. “How do you do it, then?”

  Fred and Dan, both six feet and none too graceful, started to dance, and Jack and Bob, not far from six feet and even less graceful, prepared to take turns cutting in.

  Mother now gave up all pretense of reading. Her book lay face down on her lap. She had that what’s-this-generation’ coming-to look on her face, and she seemed tensed, as if ready to make a game try at catching the vases and lamps, in case the boys should bump into them.

  “Now I’m leading,” Fred told Jane, “and it’s up to the girl to make small talk—about anything at all.”

  “The only small talk I’d make if you were my partner,” said Dan, “is to warn you that if you didn’t put your right hand up higher, I’d leave you in the middle of the dance floor. You wolf you.”

  Jack stepped up and tapped Fred on the shoulder.

  “Remember, Jane, I’m playing your part,” Dan explained. “Up to now, you’ve been following your partner. Now you lead just enough so you swing him around, and your back’s to the boy who cut in.”

  Dan swung Fred around.

  “Only it’s not absolutely necessary to kick him like that when you swing him,” said Fred, rubbing hi
s shins.

  “Now,” Dan continued. “See, my back’s toward Jack. He can’t see what I’m doing. So I look at Fred and I frown a little; I’m disappointed our dance had to end.”

  He wrinkled his forehead and nose, and made a hideous moue at Fred.

  “See?” Dan asked Jane. “Now he thinks I hate to see him go. And he’ll be pretty sure to come back and dance with me again.”

  “The hell I would,” said Fred. “After that last look, I believe I’d run to the locker room and see if anyone had a drink.”

  “Then,” Dan ignored him, “you separate from your partner. But notice you still hold his hand. Just before you let it go, you give it an intimate little squeeze, like this.”

  Dan and Fred both squeezed, with all their might. They were always testing their grips, Indian wrestling, and putting their elbows side by side on a table to see which one could make the other bend his arm.

  The handshake ended in a tie, and they let go.

  “Now you turn around,” said Dan, somewhat red of face but still intent on his instruction. “Your back’s toward your old partner. Now you face your new partner, and your eyes light up. You’ve been rescued. You’ve been looking forward all night to this particular dance. You glide into your new partner’s arms”—he stumbled into Jack’s—“and you say …”

  “Not yet you don’t,” Mother interrupted, and she was so intent her book toppled to the floor. “You’ve got to be careful to dance a few steps from your old partner, first. You don’t want him to hear you, do you?”

  Dan let go of Jack, and all of them turned with new interest to Mother.

  “How did you know that?” Fred asked. “You’re completely right, but—why they didn’t even cut in at dances when you were a girl.”

  “They didn’t cut in,” said Mother, “but they came up to your chair where you were sitting with your old partner. I always danced away a few steps from the chairs, and then I said …”

  “Who’s being hypocritical now?” Fred hooted.

  “What was it you said, Mother?” Jane giggled.

  “Nothing, I guess,” Mother said primly, leaning over to retrieve her book. “Nothing that would interest this generation.”