Belles on their Toes

we washed and oiled the floors, waxed the furniture, polished brass, scrubbed windows, and trimmed the bayberry bushes in the front yard. Everybody, including Tom, pitched in, and when we were through the house was cleaner than it was in the beginning, is now, or probably ever shall be.
    We went for a quick swim, more for sanitary reasons than for relaxation, and then put on our best clothes. Everybody looked fine, even Martha in her hand-me-downs.
    Ernestine had bought a large roast for supper and spent a good part of the early afternoon telling Tom what she intended to do to him, and how she intended to torture his cat, if he charred a single inch of it. It was the first roast we had had since we left Montclair.
    Lillian was stationed at the top of the taller lighthouse as a lookout for the Nantucket boat. As soon as the smoke was visible, she let us know, and Anne lined us up in the dining room for a final inspection.
    "Everyone's alive and whole," she began, just as Tom stuck his head into the doorway to see what was going on, "and nobody's in jail." Tom's head disappeared again. "So I guess we did a pretty good job."
    She cleared her throat and paced the floor in front of us.
    "You all know," she said in her best oratorical style, "that I don't enjoy making speeches."
    This was something we didn't know at all because there were few things Anne enjoyed more. Before she went to college, she had been a mainstay of the high school debating team, and drove her arguments home with such enthusiasm that her coach used to tell her she was supposed merely to stump her opponents, not tree them.
    "Now that I am about to relinquish my authority," she continued, "I want to thank you one and all for your fine spirit of cooperation.
    "I would caution you about three things," she said, holding up the three fingers of her right hand and counting them off one at a time. "Don't reveal to Mother about, one, Tom's being arrested; two, the disgraceful clam chowder episode; or, three, Martha's wearing insufficient clothing to the beach the day we arrived."
    "What's she talking about, Fred?" Dan whispered loudly. "And why is she hollering and sticking out her arms like that?"
    "Search me, Dan," Fred whispered back just as loudly.
    "I'm talking about this," said Anne, forgetting her role as public speaker and leaning over so her face was on the level of theirs. "If you tell Mother about Tom and the fat woman, or about the clam chowder, or about the day Martha wore the under half of Mother's suit to the beach, I'll murder you."
    "You mean," asked Fred, "the day she was naked except for that black underwear?"
    "I like that!" Martha protested.
    "That's just what I mean," Anne nodded. "Mother'd die if she heard it."
    We started for the dock. Jane walked some of the way by herself, and then Anne and Ernestine carried her together, in a chair they made of their hands and wrists. We knew Mother would want to see all of -us when her boat pulled in.
    In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart.
    The walk to the boat that afternoon was one of those occasions.
    The steamer rounded Brant Point and we could begin to distinguish the passengers.
    "I think I see Mother," Lillian shouted breathlessly.
    "Where?" we asked her."Where?"
    Lillian was too excited to tell us. "Mother," she screamed, and then jumped up and down so that Anne had to grab her dress to keep her away from the edge of the dock.
    Then we all saw Mother. She was waving, and it looked as if perhaps she were jumping up and down a little too. She was still dressed in widow's clothes, but her coloring had come back. Perhaps it was just a trick of the wind, which was billowing her dress behind her and may have accounted for the jaunty angle of her hat, but she seemed stronger and more sure of herself than we had ever seen her before.
    In a matter of minutes, the boat was tied to the dock and Mother was coming down the gangplank, struggling with two suitcases. Martha wasn't the only one thinking about saving tips.
    People stood back and gave us room as we descended on her. First it was a mass greeting, and then we could tell that she was picking out each of us, and checking us off in her mind.
    "It's so good to be home," she said. "I can't tell you how I felt when I saw all of you standing on the dock."
    We said it was good to