Belles on their Toes

check by your name on the interruptions chart? I'm trying to keep track of them, so we can see if we can cut them down."
    The interrupter would shamefacedly make his mark, while Miss Butler grinned into her typewriter. "Thank you, dear," Mother would say without a trace of a smile. "How many is that for you so far this week?"
    "Eight."
    "Goodness, that's nothing like Tom's. He's up to thirty already."
    Tom thought the interruptions chart was a fine idea, and that it was a shame the way we bothered Mother when she was trying to work.
    "Keep out of that office," he'd bellow to any of us he saw approaching the door. "Ain't you got no consideration for your poor mother? If there's anything you want to know, come here and ast me, and I'll tell you."
    "All I want to know," Ernestine said dreamily, on one such occasion, waving a letter that had arrived from upper New York State, "is what you'd do if the best-looking man in the world were madly in love with you."
    Tom thought that over. "I believe," he answered coyly, "that the first thing I'd do is ast him for his frat pin. And if you're looking for yours, you'll find it on the shelf down in the laundry."
    "What's it doing down there?" Ern asked anxiously.
    "It come down on your pajammers. If I hadn't of seen it, it would of ruint my wringer."
    Tom considered his own appearances in the office much too vital to be classified as interruptions.
    "Would you step out in the kitchen a minute, Mrs. Gilbreth?" he'd ask, sticking his head through the office door. "I got something I want to show you."
    "Is it important?" Mother would say, fatalistically putting aside her papers and starting to get up from her swivel chair.
    "You know I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important."
    "Would you mind making a check on the interruptions chart?"
    "Yes, Ma'am. The chart seems to be working fine, Mrs. Gilbreth. The children ain't bothering you half as much."
    "The children seem to be getting the idea."
    "I wisht you'd make one for the kitchen. They interrupt me all the time. I wisht someday you'd move your desk out there and see what I put up with."
    Mother, rolling her eyes skyward for the benefit of Miss Butler, would follow him to the kitchen, to be shown a picture that Bob had drawn, a mole that Mr. Chairman had dug from the front lawn, or a new trick that Tom had taught the cat.
    Meanwhile, we watched the mail anxiously for replies to Mother's prospectus. For almost two weeks, there was none. Then five arrived within two days— from the largest store in the world, in New York; from a drug manufacturer; a tool company; a dairy products distributor; an electrical appliances corporation.
    There was a wait of another week, during which it seemed certain that the course would have to be canceled. And then acceptances arrived from abroad— from a Japanese engineer, a Belgian technologist, and a representative of a British food concern.
    That made eight, and when the tuition money was received, and deposited by Martha, the bank balance was enough to guarantee that the family could stay together for another twelve months, that Anne could finish Michigan the next year, and that Ernestine could enroll at Smith.
    Mother planned, if possible, to run the course for five years, with a new group of students each year.
    By that time, Anne and Ernestine would have their diplomas, and Martha and Frank would be in college.
    That would mean only seven children to look out for at home, and Mother would be able to travel more, seeking consulting jobs. She hoped that in five years she'd be able to convince employers that she could work in a man's field.
    On the night before the course opened, Mother told us she was going to need our cooperation.
    "I know you'll all keep out of the office and the laboratory," she said, "unless it's something very important. And I hope you'll welcome all eight pupils, and treat them like friends."
    We said we didn't know about that "friends" business. We knew the school was necessary from a financial standpoint. Frankly, though, we weren't enthusiastic about a group of outsiders coming into the house and monopolizing Mother's time.
    "They're probably old cranks who are going to complain they can't concentrate because of the noise," Frank said.
    "No they're not," Mother insisted. "I've met them, and they're all as nice as can be. I think you children will be fond of them."
    "I know those old ones," Martha nodded. "Dandruff on their blue serge suits, and always trying to get in