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Belles on their Toes

Belles on their Toes

Titel: Belles on their Toes Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Frank B. Gilbreth
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own eyes. I'd never believe you could get sixty miles an hour out of it."
    "We can do seventy on the hills," Bob volunteered proudly. "Frank and Bill did something to make the engine run faster."
    "Shut up," Bill whispered, leaning forward and beaning Bob with his knuckles. "Do you want to get us all sent up the river?"
    "Sent up the river?" Jack sneered. "They can't do that to us. We don't take nothing from nobody, understand? Nothing from nobody!"
    Bill beaned him, too.
    "Seventy, eh?" said the policeman, making a note of it. He looked at the patched, treadless tires and shook his head. "What are you trying to do. Buddy, kill all those kids?"
    At that point, Frank thought killing them was a pretty sensible suggestion. But he shook his head, gulped, and wondered how Mother would explain to the Hoovers that her sons couldn't attend the reception, on account of being sent up the river.
    "Where do you think you're going, anyway?" the policeman asked thrusting his face up near Frank's. "We're going to Washington, Officer."
    "And what are you going to Washington for?" Frank thought that one over, and concluded that if he knew what was good for him he'd better come up with a more convincing explanation than the truth.
    "Why nothing in particular," he said. "Just to sight-see, I guess."
    "Go ahead and tell him," Jack said contemptuously. "Don't let him buffalo you like that."
    Bill beaned him again.
    "Yeah, tell me," the policeman ordered.
    "All right," said Frank. "We're going to see President Hoover."
    "I love wise guys, particularly in suits like that one," the patrolman leered. "I suppose the President invited you, personal, to drop in and have tea with him at the White House? Sure he did."
    Frank nodded sheepishly.
    "Nothing from nobody," Jack repeated from the back seat, putting his hands over his head to try to stave off Bill's knuckles.
    "That's right, honest," Frank said desperately. "We've had some flat tires, and we're late."
    "You," said the policeman, pointing to Jack. "Is that right? Are you going to see the President?"
    "Not just the President," Jack told him. "Mrs. Hoover and some judges from the Supreme Court, too. Why don't you shove off, Buddy?"
    The patrolman surveyed the car, the airplane paint job, the red waterline. He looked at us individually— Frank, Bill, and Fred, greasy from changing tires. Dan pale and about to be car sick. Jack and Bob, wrinkled and dirty.
    "I guess you're telling the truth," he said. "The President doesn't get many laughs, and I ain't going to be responsible for his missing this one. Go ahead. But not more than forty-five miles an hour."
    The weather had been fair when the boys left Montclair, but it was cloudy in Baltimore, and between Baltimore and Washington it started to rain. The boys were wet through by the time Frank pulled up in front of Mother's hotel.
    Even the Joad family never received a more wrathful reception from a doorman. He wouldn't let the boys alight until Frank promised to park the car down the street, a block away from the hotel.
    Mother was sitting in an arm chair, reading and knitting, when the boys entered her room. She had already changed clothes, and was ready for the reception.
    "Oh, my," she said.
    "It's my fault, Mother," Frank told her. "I thought it would be cheaper and easier to drive."
    "I don't mean that," Mother said. "Come here, Dan. You're pale as a sheet. You don't feel at all well, do you dear?"
    Dan explained that he had been car sick, but that he felt all right now that he was on firm land again.
    "You had me worried for a while," she smiled, kissing the boys. "You mean you drove all the way from Montclair in that gray thing. Won't Mr. Lindbergh be jealous!"
    Frank said he was sorry that, because they were wet, they wouldn't be able to go to the reception. But Mother said they had to go, and that she thought she could dry them out on time.
    "Everyone will look fine once they're dry," she added, "except... What's the matter with your suit, Frank? Did the rain fade it?"
    "That's the way it looks all the time," Bill said resentfully.
    "There's nothing the matter with it," Frank pouted. "It's the latest thing."
    Mother said she was sure it was. She stripped her bed and gave each of the boys a sheet or blanket. They went into the bathroom, took off their clothes, and then sat around in bedware while they waited their turns to get baths.
    Mother called the desk and made arrangements for an iron and ironing board to be sent up to her room,

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