Belles on Their Toes (19 page)

Once when Mother was out of town, a sleet storm broke the power lines and the utility company said service couldn’t be restored for twenty-four hours. Martha called the fire chief and asked him what to do.

“With all the children we have in the house,” she told him, “I thought it might be a fire hazard to have them stumbling around in the dark striking matches.”

A fire truck pulled into the driveway a few minutes later with six electric lanterns, on loan to Martha. She had a thermos of coffee ready to send back to the station to the chief.

Martha studied the budget periodically to discover just where the money went, and to see if she could fix it so that less of it went there. If she couldn’t figure out a way herself, she’d call the person who was getting the money, and ask him.

For instance, there was the matter of haircuts. As Martha pointed out, it was a relatively small item, but one that recurred. She telephoned the owner of the barber shop frequented by the boys, and explained her problem.

She told him that, since we had six boys, we had to spend more money on haircuts than most families—that it usually came to at least $3 a month. She wondered whether there was any way he could give us a special rate. And if it wouldn’t pay him to make us a rate, did he know anybody who was just opening a shop, and needed the business, who might be willing to do so.

The barber said he never had given special rates before, but that he wouldn’t mind doing it provided the boys didn’t come on weekends or after five o’clock in the afternoons, when business was heaviest.

Money saved on transactions such as that was available for luxuries. If any of us wanted anything badly enough, and it didn’t cost too much, Martha would try to get it, and still keep within the budget. If she turned us down, we could always go to Mother, who usually would see that we got what we wanted whether the budget could afford it or not. But Martha, ordinarily easy going, became furious when any of us worried Mother about money matters. And we found it was advisable, if we were going to expect favors from Martha in the future, not to go over her head.

Whenever possible, and if the price were right, we did business with the United Cigar Store, which gave out coupons and certificates with each sale. The Cigar Store had a catalogue of premiums that included almost everything any of us wanted.

There were such items as a Genuine Cowhide, Jet Black, Positively Guaranteed, Big League Catcher’s Mitt, for 415 certificates. And the catalogue said that in addition to the mitt, a regulation big league baseball would be given away absolutely free, for a limited time only, to boys taking advantage of this amazing offer.

Five yellow coupons equaled one green certificate, and we kept them in separate cigar boxes on Martha’s dresser. Every couple of weeks, she’d call us into her room and we’d count what we had, putting rubber bands around each hundred coupons and each 20 certificates, and then figuring how long we’d have to wait until we had enough of them to redeem.

Tom was a chain smoker, and usually bought his cigarettes by the pack, at whatever store happened to be handy. He was continually running out of them, and borrowing from the men taking Mother’s course, or smoking butts from the ashtrays.

Martha started buying cartons of his brand, at the United Cigar Store, and leaving them in the pantry. Whenever Tom took a pack, he’d put an IOU in the carton, and settle up with Martha on pay day.

“I never thought you’d try to make money off me, like in a company store,” he’d grumble as he paid his bills.

But Martha pointed out that she was selling him the cigarettes at cost—and that he was saving money by getting the carton rate. All she wanted was the certificates.

Tom really was pleased by the convenience of Martha’s “canteen,” but he went out of his way to check and re-check her addition, and to question the authenticity of his IOUs.

“That don’t look like my writing,” he’d say. “Where’s that magnifying glass at?” Then, after he had paid with seeming reluctance and twice counted his change, he’d add: “Give me them IOUs so I can tear them up. I think some of these were the same ones you charged me for last week.”

Mother’s students found out about the supply of smokes, and began patronizing the pantry. Later, Martha started stocking razor blades, which were another item Tom usually forgot to buy.

The first premium we obtained with the certificates was a Mother’s Day present, an ornate bedside lamp with a bright and dim switch. Mother used to say that Mother’s Day was a ridiculous occasion, and that anyone who felt he had to give his female parent a special present, one day a year, must be trying to atone for 364 days of previous neglect.

We thought, though, she was telling us that so we wouldn’t feel bad because we couldn’t afford presents.

It took 650 certificates for the lamp. Mother seemed startled when we presented it to her. But when she found that we hadn’t spent our allowances for it, or dipped into the budget, she was as pleased as if she had invented Mother’s Day herself.

“When I think of you children saving those certificates for months, just so you’d have something to give me …” she began.

“You don’t believe we’re atoning for other days of neglect, do you, Mother,” Lillian asked her anxiously.

“No, I don’t think that, dear,” said Mother, and her voice broke. “I know how long you’ve been saving those certificates, and counting them at night, and … Well, I don’t think there was anything to atone for.”

After that we got the catcher’s mitt, an electric toaster, ice skates and skis, a cigarette lighter for Tom, and finally a bottle-capper.

Martha decided on the bottle-capper so that the younger children could make their own soft drinks. The budget, in the past, hadn’t been able to include root beer or ginger ale. But Martha knew the children were fond of soda pop, and would like to have it in the ice box to serve their friends. It still was out of the question for us to buy soft drinks at a store, because a case would have disappeared in a single afternoon. But if the children could make the drinks at home, the cost would be negligible.

Old gin, rye, White Rock, syrup, and bluing bottles were rounded up from the neighbors’ basements, washed thoroughly, and then boiled in a tub on the kitchen stove. Some of the labels wouldn’t come off, but we figured the bottles were clean on the inside.

Sugar was added to root beer extract, which in turn was poured into a vat of simmering water. Then a little yeast was added, and the mixture poured into the bottles. After the caps were applied, the bottles were stored in the basement for a week, and then were ready to drink.

The children thought, and so did their friends, that the root beer was the peer of any that came from the store. A new batch was made every couple of weeks, and finally a sort of assembly line technique was developed, with two children washing bottles in the basement, two boiling bottles on the stove, and two mixing the brew.

The empty bottles were lined up around the stove, and the mixture siphoned into them through a rubber tube. We could make a couple of hundred bottles of root beer in less than forty minutes, and from that time on the basement always contained a batch that was ready to drink, and another batch that was aging.

Fortunately, Tom liked root beer, so there was no objection from him about dirtying up his kitchen. But as the weeks passed, he said he was getting mighty tired of the same old flavor.

The next time we made root beer, he suggested that we leave about a gallon of the mixture on the stove, so that he could change the flavor to suit his taste.

Tom added a package of prunes, a cup of sugar, and a whole yeast cake into the brew. Then he boiled it for half an hour, before siphoning it into the remaining bottles.

“I’m putting my name in chalk on these there bottles,” he told us. “Don’t nobody touch them, because I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I’m going to leave them stand for six months, and see how the flavor is.”

“You’re sure you’re not trying to make yourself some kind of home brew?” Frank wanted to know.

“Who, me?” Tom asked piously. “There’s a law against that, ain’t there?”

There was a law against it, all right. But after a day off in West Orange, Tom in the past had sometimes returned to the house smelling strongly of something that wasn’t root beer.

COUSIN LEORA
wasn’t really a cousin, which was something to be thankful for. Her family and Mother’s had been close friends and neighbors in Oakland, and she had married and moved East about the same time that Mother had.

She was plump, soft, bejeweled and inquisitive. None of us liked her, and Dad had despised her. He said she was a bloated drone, and that if the Bolshevists ever took over—which wouldn’t surprise him—she’d be at the top of their purge list.

Cousin Leora’s husband wisely had given up the ghost within a year of their wedding day. It was an action we felt sure he never regretted, although his worldly goods had been considerable. Left a widow with a sizable fortune, which flowed through her fingers like flypaper, she lived by herself in an apartment in New York.

Her visits to our house had become fairly frequent since Dad’s death. Since she liked to quiz us about family affairs, she usually came when Mother was out of town. Invariably she arrived while we were eating supper. And, almost invariably, it would happen to be the one night of the week when we were relying on leftovers.

Once she had written Grosie, Mother’s mother in Oakland, that she doubted if we were getting enough to eat. As a result, Mother had had a series of anxious telephone calls from Grosie asking if everything was all right, and if we needed money.

The calls had upset Mother so much that all of us tried to act particularly well-disciplined and well-fed, when Cousin Leora came to call.

A few months after we started to make our own root beer, Cousin Leora dropped in one night just as we had sat down to the table. Tom saw her chauffeur wheel the limousine into our driveway, and rushed into the dining room to spread the alarm.

“Everybody quiet down and behave hisself,” Tom shouted. “It’s the fat old snoop from New York.”

“Not,” gasped Martha, clutching her head, “Cousin Leora! How could she know this is hash night?”

“I think she likes my secret reseat,” Tom said proudly. “I believe Old Snoop can smell my hash all the way acrost the Hudson.”

“Open some cans of vegetables,” Martha hollered as she dashed into the front hall to hang up overcoats and to kick arctics and ice skates into a closet. “And everybody pick up his dishes and put on a Sunday tablecloth.”

Cousin Leora entered the hall without ringing the bell.

“Why look who’s here,” Martha cooed. “Cousin Leora! What a lovely surprise. I do hope you’ll stay for supper.”

Cousin Leora would stay, she said, providing she wouldn’t be depriving the dear children of their food. Martha took her things, and by the time they entered the dining room the table was reset on a starched linen cloth.

Mother had spoken that afternoon in Philadelphia, and still hadn’t gotten home. But we were expecting her shortly, and Tom was keeping her dinner warm. Cousin Leora didn’t seem displeased by Mother’s absence. In fact, we thought we detected a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes.

“Your dear Mother’s hardly ever home any more, is she?” Cousin Leora began as Frank helped her into her chair.

“She’s here almost every day,” Martha said. “She has her Motion Study Course right here in the house, you know. I think this is the first time she’s been away in a month or more.”

“I see,” our guest nodded, setting in motion a series of chins which broke like waves on the expansive beachhead of her bosom. But she pursed her lips and made it plain she didn’t believe a word of it.

“I’m afraid,” Martha stumbled, “we’re having hash again tonight. You always seem to have the bad luck of picking a hash night.”

“Hash seems good to me, after all that rich food we’ve been having,” said Frank, trying to help out.

“There, there, dears,” Cousin Leora comforted us. “You don’t have to make excuses to me. I’m practically one of the family. I know things have been difficult since your father passed away.”

“Not that difficult,” Martha smiled, weakly, trying to remember that she mustn’t act undisciplined. “We had roast pork last night, and meat loaf the night before that.”

“I’m sure you did, dear.” Cousin Leora pursed her lips again.

“If she’s sure we did,” Fred whispered to Dan, “why does she make an ugly face like that?”

Cousin Leora had good ears, and she didn’t miss much.

“Gentlemen don’t whisper at the table,” she reproved Fred. “I said I was sure you did, and I was not aware that I made an ugly face.”

“I’m sorry,” Fred apologized. “But we did. Ask anybody.”

Martha wanted to side with Fred, but even more she wanted to prevent Mother’s being upset by any new telephone calls from California.

“Whispering isn’t polite, and Cousin Leora certainly wasn’t making faces,” she told Fred. “If you can’t behave yourself, you’ll have to leave the table and go without your supper.”

“Goodness, don’t take the food away from the poor child,” Cousin Leora protested, in a tone indicating our rations were so scanty that missing a meal might bring on pellagra. “Perhaps it would be better if we change the subject. What do you hear from your grandmother, dear?”

“She’s just fine,” said Martha, welcoming the change and clinging to it tenaciously. “Yes, sir, just fine. Grosie is fit as a fiddle. She sure is.”

“I’ve known your grandmother ever since I was a little girl. She’s a lovely person, isn’t she?”

“We certainly think so,” Martha agreed. “We certainly do. They don’t make them any sweeter than Grosie.”

“And quite well off financially, isn’t she? I suppose she’s very generous.”

“She sends us lovely presents,” Martha nodded.

“But I know she must be generous in other ways, too. Generous in making things easier for your Mother.”

“She’s certainly offered to make things easier,” Martha nodded again.

“I thought she must have,” Cousin Leora smirked. “With two girls in college and this big household to run I suppose your Mother has had to rely on her rather heavily, hasn’t she?”