Belles on their Toes

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 chowder 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 postgraduate 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,