Belles on their Toes

Bill, and the younger children already had on their suits, and the two boys took the younger ones down to the beach, which was only a couple of hundred yards from the cottage. Martha said she'd slip on Mother's suit and join them. Anne and Ernestine had to finish sorting sheets and blankets, and told Martha they'd be down in about half an hour.
    It was late afternoon when the two oldest girls finally reached the beach. Both of them were tired from the journey to Nantucket and the housework. They sighed with relief as they sank down in the warm sand, where all of us but Martha were sitting. Martha was the best swimmer and diver in the family, and could stay in the water for hours without getting cold.
    "This is the life," said Anne stretching herself contentedly. "This is what I've been dreaming of ever since the chicken pox. I think everything is going to be much simpler from now on."
    "Will you take me out over my head?" Jack asked her. "Frank took us in but he won't take us over our heads."
    "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 policeman 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