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One reason he had so many children—there were twelve of us—was that he was convinced anything he and Mother teamed up on was sure to be a success.
he often took two or three of us, and sometimes all twelve, on business trips.
Dad took moving pictures of us children washing dishes, so that he could figure out how we could reduce our motions and thus hurry through the task.
Each child who wanted extra pocket money submitted a sealed bid saying what he would do the job for. The lowest bidder got the contract.
Dad installed process and work charts in the bathrooms. Every child old enough to write—and Dad expected his offspring to start writing at a tender age—was required to initial the charts in the morning after he had brushed his teeth, taken a bath, combed his hair, and made his bed.
He even used two shaving brushes to lather his face, because he found that by so doing he could cut seventeen seconds off his shaving time.
Dad wasn’t above stretching the truth, because there was nothing he liked better than a joke, particularly if it were on him and even more particularly if it were on Mother.
We’d sit there memorizing every word, and Dad would look at Mother as if he was sure he had married the most wonderful person in the world.
He and Mother set up a Family Council, patterned after an employer-employee board. The Council met every Sunday afternoon, immediately after dinner.
Dad thought that any pet which didn’t lay eggs was an extravagance that a man with twelve children could ill afford.
Family purchasing committees, duly elected, bought the food, clothes, furniture, and athletic equipment. A utilities committee levied one-cent fines on wasters of water and electricity. A projects committee saw that work was completed as scheduled. Allowances were decided by the Council, which also meted out rewards and punishment.
Skipping grades in school was part of Dad’s master plan. There was no need, he said, for his children to be held back by a school system geared for children of simply average parents.
The standard reward for skipping was a new bicycle. None of us used to like to jump grades, because it meant making new friends and trailing behind the rest of the class until we could make up the work. But the bicycle incentive was great, and there was always the fear that a younger brother or sister would skip and land in your class. That would be the disgrace supreme. So whenever it looked as if anyone down the family line was about to skip, every older child would study frantically so that he could jump ahead, too.
She knew, too, that Dad, who was in his fifties, wanted to get as many of his dozen as possible through school and college before he died.
“Only four of them enroll here,” Dad said, nodding toward us. “I brought the other three along so that you could get a better idea of the crop we’re raising. Red heads mostly. Some blondes. All speckled.”
“I’m not just dropping in. I want to meet their teachers and see what grades they’re going in. I’m not in any hurry. I’ve arranged my schedule so that I can give you my entire morning.”
Sometimes you’d try to tell Dad after such a visit that his popping in like that was embarrassing. “Embarrassing?” he would ask, a little hurt. “What’s embarrassing about it?” Then he’d sort of pinch you on the shoulder and say, “Well, maybe it is a little embarrassing for me, too, Old Timer. But you’ve got to learn not to show it, and once you’ve learned that, it doesn’t matter any more. The important thing is that dropping in like that gets results. The teachers lap it up.”
You children come from sound pioneer stock. You’ve been given health, and it’s your job to keep it. I don’t want any excuses. I want you to stay well.”
Our cottage had one small lavatory, but no hot water, shower, or bathtub. Dad thought that living a primitive life in the summer was healthful. He also believed that cleanliness was next to godliness, and as a result all of us had to go swimming at least once a day. The rule was never waived, even when the temperature dropped to the fifties, and a cold, gray rain was falling. Dad would lead the way from the house to the beach, dog-trotting, holding a bar of soap in one hand, and beating his chest with the other.
As Dad had planned, we all knew the Morse code fairly well within a few weeks. Well enough, in fact, so that we could tap out messages to each other by bouncing the tip of a fork on a butter plate.
The wall-writing worked so well in teaching us the code that Dad decided to use the same system to teach us astronomy. His first step was to capture our interest, and he did this by fashioning a telescope from a camera tripod and a pair of binoculars. He’d tote the contraption out into the yard on clear nights, and look at the stars, while apparently ignoring us. We’d gather around and nudge him, and pull at his clothes, demanding that he let us look through the telescope. “Don’t bother me,” he’d say, with his nose stuck into the glasses. “Oh, my golly, I believe those two stars are going to
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“Daddy, do you think that what Mr. Fremonville is saying is of general interest?” Lill interrupted a long discourse to ask. Dad and Mother, and most of the guests, laughed away remarks like these without too much embarrassment. Dad would apologize and explain the family rule involved, and the reason for it. After the guests had gone, Mother would get us together and tell us that while family rules were important, it was even more important to see that guests weren’t made uncomfortable.
ON FRIDAY NIGHTS, DAD and Mother often went to a lecture or a movie by themselves, holding hands as they went out to the barn to get Foolish Carriage.
Even more than the movies, Dad liked the shows that we staged once or twice a year in the parlor, for his and Mother’s benefit. The skits, written originally by Anne and Ernestine, never varied much, so we could give them without rehearsal. The skits that Dad liked best were the imitations of him and Mother.
Anne had become philosophic about breaking Dad down a little at a time, and she had suspected all along that there was going to be a third person on her first date.
At the dances, Dad would sit by himself against a wall, as far away from the orchestra as possible, and work on papers he had brought along in a briefcase. At first no one paid much attention to him, figuring perhaps that if he was ignored he might go away. But after a few months he was accepted as a permanent fixture, and the girls and boys went out of their way to speak to him and bring him refreshments. People, even sheiks, couldn’t be around Daddy without liking him. And Daddy couldn’t be in the midst of people without being charming.
“Some simpleton with pimples in his voice wants to speak to Ernestine,”
Someone once asked Dad: “But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?” “For work, if you love that best,” said Dad. “For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure.” He looked over the top of his pince-nez. “For mumblety-peg, if that’s where your heart lies.”
