Oh! Oh! That Gaby, Gaby Glide

by GRETCHEN FINLETTER

1

DANCING school was a lighthearted affair but it was a preparation for the big event, Real Dances with Boys. These did not start for us officially until we were about fifteen, but the shadow no bigger than a black tie was already faintly on the horizon.

I came back to school in the autumn full of my summer experiences. I had got into the second round of a tennis tournament; I had broken my arm, an important and interesting event. My friends were talking of something quite different — boys. The summer had changed them. It was now October 2. They were already speaking of the Christmas holidays. They had mysterious jokes. Things had happened to them. They had moved on into a different world. I wanted to be part of the world and show that things had happened to me too.

I had had one adventure, but I was not certain that it measured up to the momentous experiences of my friends. I was driving the buggy home from the village of Westport on Lake Champlain in the twilight. The evening was full of fireflies and I had sunk into that coma, so frequent at fourteen, when you have to be addressed several times by name before you hear and answer. You are Thinking. Suddenly a boy appeared along the road, gave a piercing whistle and then said, but softly, “Oh, you kid!” Convention demanded that I do one of two things: whip up the horse, or answer with quick repartee, “Twenty-three— Skidoo!” I did neither. I allowed the horse to go more slowly, hoping faintly that the boy might say it again. He didn’t.

Some of the girls had letters and they were reading them in whispers — bits of them, not all — to each other. I remember my sense of bleakness. It would never be quite the same again. A girl none of us liked very much was treated with deference. In the summer she had danced with boys who were already in college — college men. She was a belle. Why was she? Other girls had just as pretty dresses. She wore a somewhat larger bow on the back of her hair than the rest of us. And college men wanted to dance with her. Every value shifted. Friendships were realigned. Adam was entering Eden to destroy its peace forever.

The girls who had brothers had an advantage and fared the best. They were used to their brothers’ friends and took it more lightheartedly. But to those who did not possess this valuable relative, it was a terrifying time. We were told often a girl must never lose the respect of a member of the opposite sex. Come hell or high water, one must be respected. What was this respect? It was again vague; one started with it and then under no circumstances apparently could lose it. But did our school friend with the big bow, who had such a lively time, always receive this melancholy tribute? We were not so sure.

So at fifteen, profoundly worried and full of respect, we began what we were fully convinced was the most desperate time of our lives. In New York it was not easy to see boys. There were no movies, no outdoor events. There were a few dances, Sunday calls, and an occasional matinee.

2

THE boys from the fourth form up were all addressed as Mister. They called the girls Miss. This went on for months. Then came what was felt to be “the moment” for first names. This was a fascinating problem. Should you ask the boy to call you by your first name, or should he, or might it just happen? When it occurred it was Chapter VII of Romance.

But before any of this could happen, the girls had to meet boys — the first great hurdle. There were in New York then, as there are today, subscription dances for the girls, to which they each invited two boys. The question then arose, “What boys?” Your cousin was away and your friends’ brothers frightened you.

My mother, with good intentions, announced that one of her friends had sons and she would write her friend to deliver them up. This was full of dreadful possibilities. Mothers always seemed vague as to the ages of boys and might make a bad mistake of three years either way. Every girl knew from long experience that no one ever gets on with the children of her parents’ friends. If they were attractive and the right age they would already have been bespoken. If they came they would be “pills” and think that you were a “lemon.” These were the only two words used to describe social failures.

An elaborate correspondence began between the mothers, then further letters to the young men — who were of course protesting and were only too convinced they were getting into something bad. I suppose this was the ancestor of the Blind Date. When the situation became too desperate the fathers were appealed to. Bad-tempered New York lawyers — they were bad-tempered then, they are badtempered now — would order their exhausted junior partners to “be at that ballroom at nine-thirty and God damn it you dance with Helen!” I found myself with a medical student, and my father produced a young man called Albert Spalding for my sister Polly.

The stag line at the first dance would be as varied as the draft. Little boys who had just got their long pants would stand beside tired Wall Street men doing their duty by the Old Man’s daughter.

By the second or third dance it had shaken down. We had begun to know boys of the right age. One could launch out on one’s own and start a romantic correspondence with a member of the opposite sex.

New York, November 1st, 1912
DEAR MR. RUSSELL,
Will you come to the first Holiday dance with me on December 18th? Laura Henry is having a dinner first, and if you can come, her mother will send you an invitation.
Yours sincerely,
GRETCHEN B. DAMROSCH

St. Mark’s School, Southboro, Mass.
December 8th, 1912
DEAR MISS DAMROSCH,
I am sorry but school doesn’t let out until December 20th which cuts me out of the Holiday.
Sincerely yours,
FREDERICK J. RUSSELL III

This answer was carefully preserved. It was a Letter from a Boy.

If things went well with Mr. Russell but did not reach Chapter VII quickly enough, one might be excessively bold.

DEAR FRED, (I just can’t call you Mr. any more!)
Will you come to the Easter Holiday, etc. etc.

3

THE chaperone today is almost as much of a costume piece as the Duenna Marianne in Der Rosenkavalier. But then she was a reality. She was in the next room and buzzed in and out to make everyone know she was there, she sat in the extra seat at the theater, she appeared veiled and protected at football games, she waited endlessly in cabs and cars. She was preferably married, but could be single if she was the spinster type. A play of the day — I think it was The College Widow — had a very alluring character for this role and the second act curtain line was, “What I demand to know is, who is chaperoning the chaperone!” This was considered uproarious and made parents even more determined to have “settled” women to protect their daughters.

If a girl protested too fiercely and demanded the reason for all this shadowing, she received the answer: “Because I do not wish my daughter to be considered fast.”

To be “fast” had various interpretations. It meant going out alone with one or more boys. It meant putting powder on one’s face. It meant smoking. It meant giving the impression that one was in “high spirits.” High spirits with a young man meant drink, and with a girl meant a cheerful acceptance of his condition.

My sister Alice had a friend at Yale who came from Evanston, Illinois. He had a very serious approach to life, and he and Alice discovered that they both believed in Platonic friendship. They were much interested in the subject and they would sit on a sofa in the dim firelight discussing the whole question.

They also exchanged a number of earnest letters on the problem. As Alice wrote, “There is no earthly reason why real friendship should not exist between a man and a woman, or even a boy and a girl, without all that sentimental slush which honestly interferes, don’t you think? I should really like to know your frank opinion on this.”

The Yale man assured her that he thought her attitude quite wonderful “ in this day and age,” that he had hoped all his life for Platonic friendship, had never until now found it, was coming down to New York for the Harding dance, and how about going to the theater with him first.

My mother proved very narrow in her attitude, refused to recognize that this was a new relationship, and still insisted that there must be a chaperone. So Alice wrote that she would like to go to The Dollar Princess because everyone said Donald Brian was marvelous, but it would be necessary to get three tickets because of the old chaperone nonsense.

This was the Yale man’s first unpleasant shock. At Evanston you just took a girl out. The next surprise was much more painful. He arrived the day of the party and went to the box office as he would have at home, to buy the tickets. There were none to be had. He consulted friends who laughed at him. He became the true bulldog and finally got them through a broker for eighteen dollars apiece. This so reduced his funds that instead of procuring an orchid, as he had planned, he sent Alice sweet peas surrounded by asparagus fern.

The chaperone, a friend of my mother’s, belonged to the nineteenth century, the age of sentiment, and assumed that this charming young man must be courting Alice. She was very, very tactful, and read her program over and over again while occasionally throwing an understanding and sympathetic glance to the Yale man over what she felt was the loveliest moment in young people’s lives. She did not know about Plato.

Apparently the combination of events was too much. There was Alice, covered with pink sweet peas, who apparently found Donald Brian particularly handsome, there was this arch old lady, and he was out fifty-four dollars. For the next holiday he returned to Evanston.

4

THE dances were held at old Sherry’s, which had two ballrooms. The small ballroom was the scene of our ecstasy. It was lined with mirrors, it had rose silk curtains, and it had a place to sit out, with palms. It was, we felt, heaven.

Each girl was accompanied and called for by a maid, and in the dressing room sat a row of these pale and sleepy creatures. I have often wondered how they were ever persuaded to perform so fatiguing a job.

When a girl arrived in the dressing room, she spent many minutes “prinking” her marcelled hair. Then she put talcum powder — secretly brought from home concealed in absorbent cotton in a little bag — on her nose. Snow-white noses were considered very dashing. Then she stood, hesitating. But the music was playing “Oh! Oh! That Gaby, Gaby Glide.” It was irresistible. With a beating heart she rapidly shook hands with a row of Patronesses and entered the ballroom.

When we first went to dances, dancing was so exciting that nobody wanted to sit out. The ballroom was always crowded. Then again came one of those divisions. We saw the last girls on whom our jealous eyes were always fixed, sitting on little sofas, having long heart-to-hearts with intent young men. The ballroom suddenly emptied. The palm trees became jammed. Everyone started sitting out. It was considered “young” to dance so hard and so enthusiastically.

Mr. Conrad was the favorite orchestra leader. His music was never too loud, and the most awkward kept time to his boat. lie had a dark mustache which gradually whitened through the years, but he never lost the glint in his eye and he gave style to every party. He also did not forget names, and young men were immensely flattered when he recognized them.

“Play ‘The Pink Lady’ once again, Mr. Conrad.”

“Give us ‘Naughty Marietta.’”

Card dances and cotillions presented hazards. On the card were engraved perhaps sixteen dances. In the middle was a break, which was the supper dance. After the final dance came three “extras.” To the card was attached a little pencil by a silken cord. The young men were supposed to seize the pencil in a masterful way and write down what they wanted. The most significant dances were the first, the supper, and the last extra. It was a little like a letter, the end being the most important part, though how it began gave a clue to the contents.

A belle who was receiving several rushes had her card filled the fastest. The poor lemons with fixed smiles on their unhappy faces often wrote false initials after One Step and Tango so as not to discourage possible bidders.

No one has described the sufferings of a girl with greater genius or poignancy than Booth Tarkington in Alice Adams. The agony of Alice is ageless, and her pathetic effort to make the others at the party feel she belonged and was desired still makes the sweat break out on my forehead.

A girl’s only sin may have been shyness. But what tortures she endured if a dance was not taken or she had been “stuck” too long. She would disappear into the dressing room and prink her hair. If only her friends would not see her. With a glassy smile for the benefit of the row of maids, she faced the mirror wondering desperately how to secure another partner. The memory of a terrible song came to her. How did I “ pick a lemon in the Garden of Love, where they say only peaches grow?” She must get home. But even if she finally managed to steal out, she had the last hurdle of passing her parents’ door, from behind which a sleepy voice invariably called out, “Did you have a good time?”

“Wonderful!” was the inevitable answer. How could she explain?

At the cotillions the girls were loaded with paper caps and ruffs, jingle bells and parasols. The boys received boutonnieres of red roses, sashes, feathers. If the party was very grand, the favors became elaborate — beaded evening bags and fans of the then fashionable sandalwood. The boys received sandalwood cigarette cases and real pipes.

Of course there was competition to be the most favored, and girls kept their paper and silk trophies hung about their mirrors for months. A giant sunflower which looked as though it had been through a sandstorm was there to remind a girl, when she lifted her eyes from homework, of a better world.

Boys liked the afternoon Thés Dansants — pronounced Tee Dance-Ants. They did not feel bound by duty dances; they did not have to dress up. They went in droves, usually bringing along eight or ten uninvited classmates apiece. The orchestra was made up of three colored gentlemen, one a drummer. The drummer was always surrounded by a large, respectful circle of fifthand sixth-formers. At the party he received the most attention. The punch bowl and food were second; the girls ran a poor third.

Barents, who were not supposed to appear at dances, often dropped in at the Thes Dansants and sat along the walls watching their sons and daughters. This was repressing but there seemed to be nothing to do about it. The parents were so innocently happy to be allowed to look on. Then fate intervened in a strange way.

We had been in Paris the summer before. There was a new dance called the Maxixe. It had a heeland-toe step, a skating step, a bending step, and very good music. We had three fifteen-franc lessons and were taught to perform it in a grim but efficient manner.

One afternoon we went to a party at Du PréCatelan. The orchestra was playing a soggy tango and young South-American-looking men were leading out elderly and dressy ladies in a series of intricate steps. We knew that this was Life in the French capital, but it was somehow depressing. No one smiled.

Suddenly there was a roll of the drums and the floor was cleared. The orchestra began a gay polka and out came a young man with a hawk face, walking very jauntily in rhythm while in his arms floated a girl with bobbed curly hair on which sat a little Dutch cap. Their feet did not seem to touch the ground and they were both laughing. Their gayety swept the room like an electric breeze. The music quickened; the walk became a skip, faster and faster.

The room broke into wild applause. They returned again and danced a Maxixe but in double time and with a great deal of snap, both of them still laughing. At the conclusion there were cheers. In eight minutes this couple had destroyed forever the solemnity of dancing.

The lightness and grace of the girl, the skill of the man, and above all their gayety, made all those at the little tables want to jump up and recapture again for themselves something so young and happy. The tango was thrown out of the window. The Vernon Castles had arrived and were to become the rage of two continents.

In the winter they appeared in New York in a musical called Watch Your Step. They had the same effect on their audiences. Older people took up dancing. When the music of “Little girl, mind how you go” sounded, with one accord the parents crowded onto dance floors, shoving children aside as they skipped, up and down ballrooms, tipping inward around corners at a 45-degree angle to keep their balance. Nothing could stop them; nothing could hold them down. From eight to eighty, led by the whirling feet of Vernon and Irene Castle, the whole world went dance-mad. And then from eight to eighty the ladies began to bob their hair.