Belles on their Toes

ackker dew."
    Ernestine was flushed and out of breath. She knew she couldn't stand another number, no matter how little.
    "First Al," she begged, "please get up off your knees and let me introduce you."
    "I already introduced myself, baby," Al protested. He got up nevertheless.
    "This is Mr. Lynch," Ern said, beginning to make the rounds. "He's visiting us for a few days, and we're having a peachy time."
    "Meased to pleet you," grinned Al. He pressed the flesh.
    Ern relieved him of his ukulele and put it on the back of the piano, where she hoped he wouldn't find it. Al drifted from group to group, listening to conversations about New York band leaders, Princeton and Dartmouth, new musical comedies, and happenings in Montclair. At first he tried to hold his own in the small talk, but no one seemed interested in hearing about the annual classic involving Wallace Teachers.
    Even before supper was served, Al decided he had had enough of the party.
    "Listen," he said, getting Ern into a corner, "get me out of here. Let's go for a ride or something."
    "You know I can't leave now."
    "What's the matter with your friends, anyway. Why don't they wake up?"
    "Nothing's the matter with them," Ernestine said hotly. "It's you. You're acting like a fish out of water."
    "I am eh? Well even a fish wouldn't dare go in the water around this house. In the first place, he'd freeze to death."
    "I'm sorry about the hot water. But that's no excuse for you to act like you've been doing."
    "And in the second place, a lot of wise guys would run him crazy parading around his goldfish bowl."
    "What," said Ernestine, putting her hands belligerently on her hips, "do you mean by that crack?"
    "I suppose you don't know your brothers keep parading in and out of the bathroom?"
    "How would I know about that? And why didn't you lock the door?"
    "And one of your brothers," said Al, ignoring the questions, "dressed up like a girl."
    "No," moaned Ernestine."Oh, no!" Then she started to giggle. "That must have been Frank or Bill. They're wise guys, all right."
    "Just wait till I get my hands on them."
    "It must have been kind of funny at that," Ernestine laughed, putting her hand on his arm. "Poor Al. What did you do?"
    "It may seem like a joke to you," said Al, tilting up his nose, "but I found it typical of everything around here, including your friends."
    "And how have you found everything around here?" Ernestine demanded.
    "In bad taste.Extremely bad taste."
    Considering the source, Ernestine thought that was one of the nicest compliments she had ever heard. She took off the Tau Tau Tau fraternity pin and handed it to him, and Al went up to get his bags. While he was upstairs, she took his ukulele from the back of the piano, and put it with his raccoon coat. Then she went in the darkened dining room, closed the door, and watched through a curtain as he got in his car and drove off to the tune of "Jingle Bells."
    There wasn't much satisfaction, she thought, in the knowledge that time heals all wounds. If she could just be sure that time wounded all heels....
    After Al left, the party was a big success. One of Ern's friends from Dartmouth monopolized most of her evening. Everyone seemed to understand about Al. No one asked where he'd disappeared to.

12
ASH-TRAY CHRISTMAS

    We didn't have very much money to spend for Christmas, but it always was the most important day of the year in our house, and Mother intended to make it so again this year.
    "I'd much rather have something you made especially for me, like a calendar or a desk blotter, than anything expensive from the store," she told us. "The best present of all is something given with love and affection."
    We had been saving our allowances ever since summer, so there wasn't any real danger that we were going to have to rely exclusively on blotters and calendars. Also Ernestine and Martha now had lunch-time jobs as cashiers in the high-school cafeteria, and Frank and Bill had been doing yard work for neighbors.
    A good many tree decorations from previous years were stored in the attic. But Mother knew there was happiness in anticipation of something pleasant, so she encouraged us to make fathom after fathom of paper chains from colored advertisements and illustrations that she'd clip out of magazines.
    It was customary for each member of the family to give individual presents to all other members. But as fights and arguments occurred, the gift list of each of us seemed to become considerably