Your Coca-Cola Bottler presents Claudia, based on the famous play and novels by Rose Franken. Brought to you transcribed Monday through Friday by your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola. Relax, and while you're listening, refresh yourself. Have a Coke. And now, Claudia. Mama, I wish you would stop knitting. I've made up my mind. To what, Claudia? If you'll stop knitting, I'll tell you. What does my knitting have to do with your mind? Everything. I can't do two things at once. It's me or the knitting. Choose. All right, all right, bully. I'm putting the knitting down. That's better. Now, my attention is entirely focused on you. What you have to say better be good. Oh, I hope David can't hear us. David's in the shower. I don't think he can hear you. Shower before dinner, shower after dinner. I don't think the hot weather agrees with him at all. Claudia, get to the point. I'm just in the middle of a knit-to-purl-to. I'll lose my place. That's part of the point. David just doesn't agree with summer in New York. It's already July the 28th, and here we are still in town. It's an awful shame letting the farm go to waste like this. David knows the minute you get up to Eastbrook, you'll be running around like a chicken with a head chopped off. Oh, speaking of heads being chopped off, or rather not being chopped off, I wonder how the rooster is. Oh, I miss him. The Bluff and Shakespeare and the brook, the walnut tree. You want everything, don't you? I want everything for David more. I think the farm is everything to him, almost. Go on. What's your plot? No plot at all. I'm just going to try to make David see that it won't be any more work or effort on my part for us all to be on the farm. Then he'll say it's all right to go back, and, Mom, it's the truth, isn't it? Could be, could be. I'm going to make him see it as soon as he comes out of that shower. When who comes out of that shower? Oh, you is who. What do you and Mama have your heads together about? You, I said. Good or bad? Wonderful. Please, tell me all. Look at him, Mama, just drooling for a compliment. Image of your son, drooling. If anybody once more tells me that I look like that offspring of mine, I shall disown him. That fat, wet, helpless child. That's enough, that's enough. Now tell me, what were you talking about? David, let's go back to Eastbrook tomorrow. What's the rush? I still think it's too soon for you. David, it's been months since I had the baby. Three and a half weeks. Almost a month? Our time shrinks in this house. Look at me being treated as if I were a delicate something or other. I can't do this, I can't do that. Fiddlesticks. Temper, temper. I'm going to lose it in a minute, and it'll serve you right. Look, darling, I'm perfectly willing to discuss this business calmly and quietly. You are? Mm-hmm. Then what am I getting so excited about? Sit down, both of you. David, you miss the farm, don't you? You bet I do. So do I. The frogs, the crickets, the crow. I even... Why, even Mama misses that place. Even Mama, that hurried old woman who hasn't got a feeling in her heart. Even she. David, why can't we go back tomorrow? I haven't wanted to go back, and this may surprise you, because... because I care for you even more than for the farm. That was sweet. But you can have both. It seems to me there'd be an awful lot of work for you to be up there. Oh. Big house to take care of, the baby, the ground, running up and down there. I'll walk up and down. And why is it that of all the women in America, I have to be the one that's pampered? Now, calm down, calm down. We'll talk it out. I bet you 90% of the women in this country don't have things half as easy as I do, and they survive, and they... they survive very well. You don't say. I think I'm starting to take all this as a personal insult. There, I'm calmed down now. I feel much better. Claudia is trying to tell you, David, that she's made of pioneer metal. Fourteen carat pioneer metal at that. Now, let's get back to the subject, Mrs. Norton. I am perfectly willing to go back. I'd love to. If you think that there won't be too much work for you. Now, take for instance the cooking. I don't do the cooking. Gertrude does that. I don't do the cleaning. Gertrude does that. Gertrude is a very wonderful woman. Mmm, isn't she? She was a stroke of luck. Two strokes. With her around, there's nothing for me to do except twiddle me thumbs. That was before the baby. Oh, good. Now, I'll have his to twiddle, too. Mmm, very funny. David, seriously, that baby won't take any more care up in Eastbrook than he is in New York. He'll be less care. All we have to do is throw him in his carriage in the morning, stick him out under the apple tree, and just forget all about him. Except in between his bottles and other little details, too numerous to mention. I understand that the other little details are nothing to sneeze at. Mama's been sneezing at them all along, haven't you, Mama? I have, indeed. Kachoo, kachoo. Bless you, bless you. Wasn't I? See, David? Mmm. Now, what about Eastbrook? He's melting, Claudia. You realize, of course, that Mama's coming back with us, and Mama's as good as two couples any day. Three couples, please. Two? That's all you'll get paid for? It's starting to sound as if we were very much overstaffed. We are, and it's time you realized it. David, think of all the women who have nobody to help them at all. Come back from the hospital to a home with several other children and a husband they have to care for. They do all their own work, and that's all there is to it. You know, I'm almost a little ashamed of myself for all this indulgence. Well, maybe you're right. Maybe I've been wrong to worry about you. No, that's never wrong. That's nice. Would you ever stop worrying about me? Only I'd much rather you worried without worrying. You see what I mean? I think I do. Then it's all settled? It's all settled. Hooray, hooray, hooray! Mommy, did you hear? It's all settled. I heard. I'm delighted. How soon can we go back? Tomorrow. Why not? Oh, David, I'm so happy. You'll get your tan back. The circles under your eyes will go away. You'll sleep better nights. You'll start eating the way you should. I thought we were going back for you because the country's so much more restful in the city. Well, you're just another good reason. I threw you in for good measure. Thank you. Faye, maybe we ought to fire some of the help. It doesn't sound as if there'd be enough for them to do. Believe me, if we had them, I'd fire them. If there's anything more wasteful than a house with a lot of people and nothing to do, I can't think of it. Oh, I wonder who that is. Only one way to find out. Don't get up, Mama. I'm there. Hello, Bertha. Well, you do not mind we drop in like this? I mind you don't do it more often. Come in, come in. Good evening, Mrs. Norton. Hello, Fred. Well, well, this is nice. We have just come up for a moment to say goodbye. To say goodbye? David, did you hear that? Hello, Fritz Bertha. Please come in and sit down. Mrs. Brown, being a grandmother looks very well with you. Well, that's nice to hear. Mama, Bertha and Fritz are absolutely psychic. They've come up here to say goodbye to us and we just this minute decided to go away. That is psychic. Bertha, how did you know we were leaving for Eastbrook tomorrow? We didn't know. You said you came up to say goodbye. Goodbye because we are leaving, Mr. Norton. Well, that's a coincidence. You and I and David and... Leaving, what do you mean, Fritz? Yeah, we leave the apartment house. They do not need a superintendent anymore. They don't? They tear the building down. No. Oh, but it's such a lovely building. David and I love living here. Commencing next week, so everybody must be moved out. Bertha, why didn't you tell me the other day? There was so much already to talk about with the baby. I don't understand tearing an apartment down in these times. Well, it is a small apartment house, 12 floors. What is that? Nothing. They'd build a high one, 23 floors, modern. And no charm. That certainly is going to make an awful lot of trouble for an awful lot of people who have no place to live. You children timed it perfectly, didn't you? We certainly were lucky. We're glad you were settled so nice. Where are you and Fritz planning to go, Bertha? We visit with our Lisa, who lives in Maryland. Fritz will be happy there on the farm. He was not meant to be a superintendent in the middle of a big city. He grows spindly with his life. Oh, such a way to talk in front of me. But, Bertha, when you told me about Lisa's house a few months ago, it sounded as if there wasn't much room there. There will be room enough for a little while, until we find a place permanent. Yeah, Mama and I, we managed before. A little apartment being torn down is nothing for us. What do you say, Mama? I say you are right, Fritz. But I don't like you calling me Mama, not in front of people. We aren't people. At least we hope you don't think we are. I do not. That is why I call her Mama. Good. Oh, but I think it's terrible about the apartment. Say, David... Don't say another word, darling. What do you think? What do you think? You say it, you say it. Go on, go on. All right, I'll say it. Bertha and Fritz, you are being thrown into our laps by fate. And who are we to argue? With what? Mama, let them speak. Fritz, I don't understand. I'll make it simple and direct. All I'm trying to say is that David and I need you. We need you very much. We were just talking about it before you came, weren't we, David? We were. There's so much to do up on the farm. I can't possibly begin to do it all by myself, especially now that there's the baby to be taken care of. And he needs so much care that there should be somebody there that does absolutely nothing else but take care of him. That's where you come in, Bertha. Now, as for the outside, why, there's the land just crying for its matter. Yes, crying. You say the other day you have somebody, Mrs. Norton, some Gertrude or somebody. Oh, yes, but she's just part-time, and she has no knack with babies at all. She told me so. Yes, she said so herself. Oh, David, won't it be wonderful for us if Fritz and Bertha will decide? Oh, Bertha, please say yes. Well, it's much too beautiful. It does not happen this way. Can you think of a better way? Connecticut, a farm. I would become young again. Then it's all settled. Oh, Fritz, what do you think, really? I think, Bertha, sometimes you must accept presents life gives you. And you and I, we have talked often of a place like that. Talking without hoping. What a wonderful night this is. I'll call you tomorrow and we'll work out the details. The details, they will not be important. Mrs. Norton, I'd like to go home now. This is so much. I must tell Lise and I must have time to be leaving. Of course. Dave will arrange everything tomorrow. I call you at the office, Mr. Norton. You are busy to have to remember to call me. Oh, I won't forget. We came to say goodbye. We're saying hello instead. That's the way it should be. Good night, and will you understand what I try and say? We do. Good night, Fritz, and I... My tongue is stopped by my heart. Good night. Good night. Strange, isn't it, how Berth and Fritz have somehow become a part of our lives? Strange and wonderful. I think so. Mama, what do you think of it all? Do you children realize what you've done? What have we done, Mother? You've hired a couple. When you decided there's not enough work for the help we already have. What a couple, too. But can you afford it? Not we can afford it at all. Nope, so I thought. A fine state of things. David, maybe we shouldn't have. I mean, the money and... Well, it'll be stretching thin, but we'll find a way to manage it. I just couldn't bear to see Fritz and Bertha having to look for a place. Mama, don't look at us like that. Do you think we've acted crazy? Do I think? Yes, I think you have star crazy. But I'd have wrung your necks if you'd acted differently. A friend of mine wins the blue ribbon for consideration. When he comes home and says, I've asked a few people over, he brings a case of Coca-Long. Picks it up when he stops for gas. And does his wife appreciate that thoughtfulness? She doesn't mind how many people stop in at the evening. All she has to do is put the Coca-Cola on ice, get the opener out, and she's prepared for hospitality. Well, it looks as if we'll be going back to Eastbrook tomorrow, Mr. King. And going back with a great deal more than when you came. A great deal more. The baby, Fritz and Bertha, we welcome them all. What about luggage and things like that? Unfortunately, a great deal more of that, too. I don't know how we've managed to accumulate so much. Is it all going to fit in that car? I hope so. I shudder to think of what David is going to say when he sees it. If he's at all like my husband was, he'll hit the ceiling. Men do like to travel without luggage. So do I, but it's rarely possible. Oh, well, I'm not going to worry about it. Tomorrow will come soon enough. See you then, Mrs. Brown. Goodbye, Mr. King. Every day, Monday through Friday, Claudia comes to you, transcribed, with the best wishes of your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola. So listen again tomorrow at the same time. And now this is Jo King saying au revoir. And remember, whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment, think of Coca-Cola. For Coca-Cola makes any pause the pause that refreshes. And ice-cold Coca-Cola is everywhere. This broadcast of Claudia was supervised and directed by William Brown Maloney. And now here's a word from your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola.