Belles on their Toes

became, if anything, even worse than Mother had expected. The big firms declined to renew their motion study contracts. Various reasons were offered. They boiled down to the belief that, while Mother might know the theory of motion study, no woman could handle the technical details of the job or command the respect and cooperation of shop foremen and workers.
    The Motion Study Course, which Mother had planned while in Europe, seemed the only remaining chance. Even if industries thought she wasn't able to put time-saving theories into practice in their plants, perhaps they'd send their own engineers or other personnel to her to learn the theories, and then apply them themselves.
    She mailed prospectuses to a dozen former clients and other firms that had shown an interest in motion study in the past. The course was to be held at our home in Montclair, where Dad and Mother had their offices and laboratory.
    The tuition was stiff. Mother figured that if less than six firms sent representatives, she'd have to call off the whole idea. That meant we'd move to California, or accept some of the kind offers of family friends.
    If there were as many as six, there still would be a chance that the family could stay together. If there were more than six, the family could stay together, and there would be enough money for Ernestine to start college in the fall.
    Mother wouldn't be budged on that business of sending all of us to college. When anyone tried to tell her it wasn't feasible, she jutted out her chin.
    Some parents find the task of getting even one child ready for school in the morning to be an exhausting one. Mother got eight ready, saw that the beds were made and the house cleaned, supervised Ernestine's menus and Martha's budget program, kept an eye on Bob and Jane, mended and sewed on buttons, wrote Anne every day, and still found time to read aloud to us at night, to help us with our homework, and to go with us to Sunday school.
    And she worked ten hours every day in the office and laboratory.
    At night Mother was slow and fumbling, and there were circles under her eyes. But in the mornings her weariness was gone, and she was at her best.
    Between six and seven o'clock in the mornings, she'd help the younger children make their beds and straighten up their rooms, while listening to poems, spelling words, or multiplication tables they had been assigned to memorize for school.
    At seven she waked the older ones, and then helped them with their beds and assignments. We left for school a few minutes after eight, and then Mother turned Bob and Jane over to Tom, and went into her office. The stenographic staff, which had been reduced to one, arrived at nine, and Mother wanted to be sure Miss Butler had enough to keep her busy.
    Once an hour, Mother would come out to check on Bob and Jane. Ernestine and Martha, both of whom had been taught to type by Dad, took turns coming home directly from school in the afternoons and helping out in the office.
    Sometimes, in spite of rules about interrupting Mother, there were more children in the office than out of it. Miss Butler used to say that she should have studied at a nursery school, instead of at a business college.
    None of us was supposed to enter the office without knocking, and only then when the business was urgent. We knocked, all right, but our ideas of urgent business sometimes conflicted with Mother's.
    "Do you think," Lillian would ask, after beating a loud tattoo on the door, "that I should wear the pink or the yellow dress to Boodle's birthday party?"
    The worst of it was that such a question would capture Mother's interest, and she'd forget all about what she was doing.
    "The yellow one is my favorite," Mother would say. "I think those pleats on the side are precious, don't you?"
    "Do you think it's long enough?"
    "It is getting a little short," Mother would agree. "I'll let the hem down after supper. How old is Boodle, anyway? It seems to me she had a birthday..."
    Suddenly it would dawn on her that she was being interrupted. "We'll talk about it at supper, dear," she'd say firmly. "I know it's important, and I won't forget it. But I'm very busy right now."
    She'd make a note on her desk pad about Lillian's dress, and she wouldn't forget it.
    Finally Mother devised an interruptions chart, which she hung on the wall behind her office desk. When one of us came into the office with a problem that wasn't vital, she'd tell the offender:
    "I wonder if you'd mind making a