Belles on their Toes

giving him a piece of his mind one night, when he found Doctor Bob sitting on his kitchen table.
    Tom was particular about the table. It was his office, and it symbolized something that was exclusively his. He ate off it, kept his tools on it, and maintained a bed for Fourteen under it. Although Tom often cleaned chickens and skinned squirrels on his table, none of us was allowed to place anything unsanitary upon it, particularly ourselves.
    Anne was preparing a midnight meal after the movies, and Doctor Bob was watching from the table, when Tom came down from his room to get a pitcher of ice water.
    "My table," Tom gasped. "Get your hiney offen there."
    "Don't pay any attention to him, Bob," Anne blushed. "He does that to everybody."
    "I have to eat my food offen there, you know," Tom screamed.
    "You're not dealing with children any more," Anne told him furiously. "You go back to your room and be quiet."
    "I quit," Tom shouted, reaching behind him in a familiar gesture to untie his apron, but finding only the rear of his bathrobe. "Let your Mother find someone else to do all the dirty work around here."
    "Wait a minute," said Doctor Bob, sliding off the table, "I'll sit in a chair. There's nothing to get excited about."
    Tom seized a dishrag and a bar of soap, and scrubbed the table officiously.
    "I wouldn't mind if I didn't eat offen here," he kept mumbling. "It's bad enough having members of the immejate family sitting on it."
    "I don't blame you," sympathized Doctor Bob, who had heard from Anne about Tom's ideas concerning his own illnesses. "A man who's been through what you've been through can't be too careful about germs."
    "That's right," Tom agreed, somewhat mollified. "But nobody around here don't consider that. How did you know?"
    "Come over here in the light." Doctor Bob spread open one of Tom's eyes and peered into it. "Now open your mouth and say 'ah.' "
    Tom opened his mouth and said it.
    "Clear history of pleurisy. You're in good shape now, but watch the germs. If you ever feel an attack coming on, there's an old medicine on the market that's better than any of the new things. It's called..."
    "Quinine Remedy," Tom beamed.
    Doctor Bob nodded sagely.
    "Yes, sir ," said Tom, sucking in his stomach, and spreading newspapers over his table. "You can sit up here, now, Doctor, if it's more comfortable."
    "I'm all right, here in the chair."
    "Come on, sir," Tom begged. "Make yourself comfortable."
    Doctor Bob climbed back on the table.
    "For Pete's sake," Anne said incredulously. "You're the first one he's let do that since Dad died."
    "I don't mind when there's papers on the table," Tom explained patiently. "I used to spread out papers for your father, too. I got to eat offen there, you know."
    "You can't be too careful," Doctor Bob agreed.

    By the second day of Doctor Bob's visit, all of us had decided we wanted him as a member of the family. So much so that we began to take precautions to make certain Anne wouldn't lose him.
    Frank, Bill, and Fred drew up a schedule and stood watch in the mornings, so that no one would make any noise and awaken Doctor Bob. Frank had the duty on the second floor, Bill on the first, and Fred outside his window. Tom fixed special desserts for him, and was always sending milk and sandwiches up to his room.
    Some mornings, when he was up before Anne, Doctor Bob would play baseball with the boys or take the girls riding in his car.
    "Are you sure you're having a good time?" we'd ask him. "Would you like us to call Anne, now? She's slept long enough. Ordinarily, she's up with the birds, doing all the housework."
    "No, that's all right. Let her sleep."
    "And, boy, is she a good cook!"
    "I'll bet," he'd grin.
    "Is there anything we can get you? How about another cup of coffee?"
    "No thanks. I'm doing fine."
    Anne finally complained about it to Mother.
    "He's going to think they're all dying to get rid of me," she moaned.
    "He's got more sense than that," Mother said.
    "It used to be, when I had a fellow over, that I couldn't get rid of the kids. They'd be all over me, or hiding under the sofa, or peeking through the keyhole, or making loud sounds of kisses every time anyone tried to hold my hand."
    "I know it," Mother sympathized. "And your father used to egg them on. I used to speak to him about it."
    ''I know you did. I'm not blaming you. But I'll swear all that was better than what they do now. When we walk into a room now, they all nudge each other, when they think we're not