What does Mrs.Gibbs ask her husband to talk to George about at the beginning of Our Town by Thornton WIlder?

byis set in the
imaginary
"everytown" called Grover's Corners, and the two "everyman"
families in the
play are the Gibbses and the Webbs. On the morning the play opens, we meet

Doctor Gibbs who has just come home from delivering twins.

WHen he
gets home,
his wife greets him and worries about him, but then she tells her
husband that he has to give
their son a little talking-to about not doing his
household chores. She says, "Seems like
something's come over him lately.
He's no help to me at all. I can't even get him to cut me some
wood." While
George has not been "sassing" his mother, he has been whining and
mooning
around thinking more about baseball than the chores he is supposed to do for his
mother.
George is a teenage boy, and it is not surprising that he would have
to be reminded to pay
attention to his household chores because he is
completely absorbed only in the things he likes
to do.

Doctor Gibbs does a masterful job of getting his son to do what Mrs.

Gibbs wants without lecturing and without completely bribing him to do the
right
thing:

Well, George, while I was
in my office today I
heard a funny sound€¦and what do you think it was? It
was your mother chopping wood. There you
see your mother€¦getting up early;
cooking meals all day long; washing and ironing and still she
has to go out
in the back yard and chop wood. I suppose she just got tired of asking you.
She
just gave up and decided it was easier to do it herself. And you eat her
meals, and put on the
clothes she keeps nice for you, and you run off and
play baseball€¦like she's some hired girl we
keep around the house but that
we don't like very much. Well, I knew all I had to do was call
your attention
to it. Here's a handkerchief, son. George, I've decided to raise your
spending
money twenty-five cents a week. Not, of course, for chopping wood
for your mother, because
that's a present you give her, but because you're
getting older and I imagine there are lots of
things you must find to do with
it.

The truth is that
George has been
thinking about more than baseball. He has been mooning a bit over the girl
next
door, Emily Webb, and he has also been feeling the need to have more
money.

Doctor Gibbs plays on his son's guilt a bit and is
justified in doing so because what
he says is the truth. All George needs is
a gentle reminder and a small bribe. His father makes
the proper assumption
that an extra twenty-five cents a week is a small price to pay to ensure
that
both his wife and his son are happy--and that the chores will get

done.