Free The Moffats by Eleanor Estes Page A

lessons. Mama did a great deal of sewing for Miss Chichester and she was not always able to settle her bills with Mama. Mama said they should strike a bargain. The way Miss Chichester might settle her bills was to give all the Moffats dancing lessons free. Or rather, all except Rufus. Rufus would go as soon as he was a little older. Although, for that matter, as far as age went he really could go now. Hughie Pudge was in the dancing class and he was only six, just a few months older than Rufus. But he and Rufus always got into a dispute, which ended in a big fight. Or else they spent their time firing spitballs from their slingshots at the moose heads at each end of the hall. Naturally these doings upset the class. One or the other, therefore, must be kept out. Since Rufus did not pay for his lessons and Hughie did, of course Rufus was the one Miss Chichester felt she would have to get along without. Rufus did not mind in the least being deprived of dancing lessons. He much preferred playing marbles or riding his scooter.
    Of the three Moffats, Sylvie, Joe, and Jane, who did go to Miss Chichester's dancing school, Sylvie was the only one who loved it wholeheartedly. She was very quick and graceful. Dancing came as naturally to her as breathing. It was no wonder Miss Chichester made her do half the teaching.

    As for Jane, she loved the thought of dancing school, but when she got there how different it always was from what she had imagined! Before going to sleep at night, Jane pictured herself dancing as beautifully and gracefully as Sylvie. Now she would have the center of the floor at dancing school, spinning lightly as a leaf, while all the others held their breath. Or she would be leading the Virginia reel with the greatest of ease and assurance. Her arms and legs would behave perfectly. But, in real life, her arms and legs acted as though they were stuffed with lead. And her hands and feet seemed to swell to extraordinary proportions.
    Moreover, on dancing-school days, Mama always did her hair up in curlers. Instead of her two familiar pigtails, strange long curls bobbed behind her, distracting her attention. They looked absolutely ridiculous, she was sure. "Corkscrews!" Peter Frost called them.
    As far as she was concerned, the only really nice thing about dancing school was the slippers with the pom-poms on their toes and the ribbon lacings that wound halfway up her white-stockinged legs. Even though she never could dance at dancing school the way she could in her dreams, the slippers alone made it worthwhile.
    But Joe now! Joe hated dancing school and didn't have even the consolation of pom-poms on his slippers. He hated dancing school and he was no good at it. He was good at lots of other things. He was good at spinning tops. He could fly kites better than anybody else on the block. He always had a good pencil with a fine sharp point in his pocket. He could whistle and he could whittle. Yes, all these things he was good at, but he was not good at dancing school and he did not like it. Not at all. He begged Mama not to make him go.
    "I'll rake the leaves, shovel the snow, mow the lawn, sift the ashes, without your ever even askin' me to," he said to Mama.
    But Mama said he should go. If he didn't go, Miss Chichester would feel very badly. She would feel as though she were not keeping her part of the bargain. "But I think I feel worse going to dancing school than Miss Chichester would if I didn't go," Joe said miserably. He knew though that remonstrance was useless. Mama knew he didn't like parties, dancing school, speaking pieces. Still she thought he should do these things. "You must learn to be graceful and to have nice manners even though you are a boy," she said. To Mama this business exchange of dancing for sewing seemed a heaven-sent opportunity. How otherwise could she possibly afford to give her children the advantages of dancing school? Under the circumstances, she thought Joe should go. "Try to like it," she