Belles on their Toes

routine.
    Each older child, besides being responsible for himself, was responsible for a younger child. Anne was responsible for Jane, Ernestine for Jack, Martha for Bob, and Frank for Dan. This applied not only to packing clothes, but any family project or emergency, n the event of fire, or when crossing a street, or when it came to writing up the daily jobs on the process charts, the older ones were supposed to help their particular charges. Bill, Lillian, and Fred were in the intermediate group—old enough to look out for themselves, but not old enough to help anyone else.
    Once the clothes were packed, together with sheets, blankets, tools, dolls, games, scrapbooks, crystal detectors and headphones, stamp collections, free samples and other articles that couldn't possibly be left behind, we devoted our attention to Departure Day.
    Martha, meanwhile, had taken over the budget. Martha was not ungenerous with her own money, although it didn't exactly flow through her fingers. But when it came to handling Mother's money, her fingers had to be pried apart and twisted. It was a waste of time to tell Martha that you can't take it with you. She had long since made up her mind that, if that were the case, no sensible person would even dream of going.
    She drew up requisition slips that we had to fill out in triplicate to buy anything for the house or to get our weekly allowances. We agreed with Bill that it seemed a lot of trouble to go to for fifteen cents a week.
    To get to Nantucket, we planned to take a Lackawanna train from Montclair to Hoboken, a ferry from Hoboken to New York, a night boat from New York to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the Nantucket boat from New Bedford to our destination. We knew that the transferring, with all our suitcases and the younger children, was going to be a job. But the trip on the night boat was cheaper than going to New Bedford by train.
    Martha, who had been duly identified by Anne at the bank, cashed a check and went to New York to pick up the reservations. She was appalled and unnerved when the man at the ticket office on the dock told her the total cost.
    "There must be some mistake," she told him. "It's Nantucket we're going to, not Paris, France. Would you mind adding it up again?"
    The man added again, and then Martha checked him—twice. When she finally became convinced that there was no mistake, she decided to turn back two of the five staterooms Mother had reserved, and to exchange two of the full-fare tickets for half fares.
    When she returned from the city, Martha, bristling with indignation, told Ernestine and Anne about the prices. She also explained about turning in the staterooms and exchanging the tickets.
    "So I saved better than twenty dollars," she concluded. "There'll have to be four of us in each of two staterooms, and three in the other."
    "Good night," said Anne, "even three persons in one of those staterooms is a slum. But I guess we'll manage somehow."
    "Of course we will," Martha agreed. "And think of saving..."
    "Wait a minute," Anne interrupted. "You've forgotten all about Tom. Where's he going to sleep?"
    "And if you try to tell us he can sleep in one of our staterooms," Ernestine put in, "all I can say is that's carrying economy a little too far."
    "It certainly is," Anne agreed. "The very idea!"
    "I'll scrub floors," Ernestine announced dramatically.
    "I'll clean out the rest rooms in the Hudson Tubes. But I will not..
    "Neither will I," said Anne.
    "I didn't forget about him," Martha insisted. "And for cat's sake put down those scrub brushes and get up off your hands and knees."
    "Where's he going to sleep then?" Anne asked.
    "Well," said Martha, "he was complaining just the other day about how he never slept a wink on the way to Nantucket. So if he doesn't sleep anyway, what's the use of throwing away perfectly good money?"
    "You can't do that to him," Anne protested. "You go right back to New York and get another stateroom."
    "It's all right," Martha insisted. "I already told him about it."
    "Poor Tom," Anne sympathized. "What did he say?"
    "Oh, you know Tom. He grumbled about a hundred and twenty million people in the country, and about how Lincoln freed all the slaves but one. But he didn't really object."
    "Poor Tom!" Anne repeated. "My cow."
    "I don't know why he puts up with us," Ernestine agreed.
    "Look," said Martha, fishing angrily in her pocket for the checkbook. "Do either of you want to take over the budget? I ask you, do you?"
    "I