Belles on their Toes

a corner to tell you about your dimpled little knees."
    "Old ones don't talk about dimpled knees," Ernestine said. "They still talk about your trim little ankles."
    "They're not old," Mother smiled. "At least not very. One of them is a woman—Miss Lies. She's from Macy's."
    "Probably with a silky black moustache and mannish tweeds," Ernestine hooted.
    Tom also was not pleased about the outlook, especially when he found out that one of the group was Englishman.
    "As if I ain't got enough work already," he complained, and with a good deal of justification. "Just keep them out of my kitchen, that's all. Especially the Limey—and that goes for the Jap, too."
    He fished in a drawer for a pencil and paper, and made a great show of inventorying his tools, so that he'd know if anything disappeared.
    We hid on a landing half-way up the stairs, and j watched Mother's pupils arrive. The first was Mr. Yoyogo, the Japanese engineer. Tom, dressed in a clean butcher's apron and his chef's cap, answered the bell and let him in.
    "You must be Yoyo," Tom said sullenly, purposely dropping the "Mister," but inadvertently omitting the last syllable. "You can put your hat and coat in there," he pointed to a closet, "and then go in the office, there." He pointed again, and started to return to the kitchen.
    "You must be Tom," Mr. Yoyogo said. "Mrs. Gilbreth told us all about you. She says you do the cooking, laundry, help with the shopping, and do most of the heavy work in the yard. You must know motion study yourself."
    Tom turned around. "Let me take your hat and coat," he said.
    "I'm going to have to watch your motions," Mr. Yoyogo told him. "You must have what the Gilbreths call The One Best Way."
    "I'll learn you what I can, Sir," said Tom, holding open the office door for him.
    The other six men arrived together in a cab, and again Tom answered the door. They were all in their late twenties or early thirties, and two of them were tall, husky, and handsome.
    "Good night, just look at that," Ernestine whispered delightedly, forgetting for the moment all about upper New York State. "I've already changed my mind about not wanting to be friends. Anne'll die when she hears what she's missing."
    "They're not what I expected," Martha admitted. "They don't seem like the dandruff type."
    The men were laughing at something, and acted noisy and boyish. They asked Tom how tricks were, and started to take off their coats. Tom took the wraps from the two tall ones, who he apparently had decided must be Americans, and hung them up. But he hesitated before accepting the coats and hats of the other four. When he saw he couldn't pick out the Englishman, he took the rest of the wraps. Tom always believed in knowing who his friends were, though, so before he departed again for the closet, he asked:
    "Does any of you gentlemen want a cup of tea?"
    Nobody did.
    "How about a crumpet?"
    Nobody wanted one of those either.
    "If you're looking for the Limey," one of the two tall ones grinned, and it was apparent that Mother had given all the group a thorough briefing on what to expect, "I'm your man. If you bring my coat back,: I'll hang it up myself."
    "Never mind," Tom said grumpily, "this time."
    There was one more pleasant surprise for us, and Tom seemed to find it pleasant, too. Miss Lies turned out to be young, blonde, slim and stunning. The chef's hat toppled off as Tom bowed her gallantly into the office.
    We had to hurry away to school, without meeting Mother's pupils, and got no more than a glimpse of them as they left the house late that afternoon. But the next day Mother said she was going to serve them tea and apple cake, and that if we rushed home from school we could join the party.
    The boys arrived for the tea in their school clothes, but Ernestine and even Martha, who was beginning to use lemon peels on her freckles, put on their best things—dresses with low waists and skirts above the knees, high heels, and rolled silk stockings with clocks down the sides.
    Mother introduced us. "This is Ernestine, my next-to-oldest; and Martha; and Frank, my oldest boy; and Bill."
    She was interrupted by Tom.
    "If you've got time to come back to the kitchen, I've got something important to show you, Ma'am," he told Mother.
    "Can't it wait until after tea?''
    "Well,'' said Tom, looking crushed, "I guess it could. It ain't nothing much,"
    "It isn't anything Mr. Chairman has dug up, is it? You know I don't like to look at those things,"
    "No, Ma'am. It