Cheaper by the Dozen (7 page)

The next afternoon he built a mold, mixed his concrete confidently, and poured his bird bath.

"We'll let it set for awhile, and then take the mold off," he said.

Dad had to go out of town for a few weeks. When he returned, he changed into old clothes, whistled assembly, and led us out into the yard.

"I've had this bird bath on my mind all the time I was away," he said. "It should be good and hard now."

"Will the birds come and take a bath in it, Daddy?" Fred asked.

"I would say, Freddy, that birds will come for miles to take a bath in it. Indeed, on Saturday nights I would say the birds will be standing in line to use our lovely bathtub."

He leaned over the mold. "Stand back, everybody," he said. "We will now unveil the masterpiece. Get your towels ready, little birdies, it's almost bathing time."

We stood hushed and waiting. But as he lifted the bird bath out of the mold, there was an unbelievable grating sound, and a pile of dust and rubble lay at our feet. Dad stood deflated and silent. He took it so seriously that we felt sorry for him.

"Never mind, Daddy," Lill said. "We know you tried, anyway."

"Bill," Dad said sternly. "Did you?"

"Did I what, Daddy?"

"Did you touch my bird bath?"

"No, Daddy, honest."

Dad reached down and picked up some of the concrete. It crumbled into dust between his fingers.

"Too much sand," he muttered. And then to Bill: "No, it's my fault. Too much sand. I know you didn't touch it, and I'm sorry I implied that you did."

But you couldn't keep Dad down for long.

"Well," he said, "that didn't work out so very well. But I've built some of the finest and tallest buildings in the whole world. And some bridges and roads and canals that stretch for miles and miles."

"Is a bird bath harder to build than a tall building, Daddy?" asked Dan.

Dad, deflated all over again, kicked the rubble with his toe and started toward the house.

"Too much sand," he muttered.

Mother saw her children as a dozen individuals, a dozen different personalities, who eventually would have to make their ways separately in the world. Dad saw them as an all-inclusive group, to be brought up under one master plan that would be best for everybody. What was good for Anne, he believed, would be good for Ernestine, for Bill, for Jack.

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.

Dad made periodic surprise visits to our schools to find out if and when we were ready to skip. Because of his home-training program—spelling games, geography quizzes, and the arithmetic and languages—we sometimes were prepared to skip; but never so prepared as Dad thought we should be.

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.

Mother saw the drawbacks. She knew that, while we were advanced for our age in some subjects, we were only average or below in some intangibles such as leadership and sociability. 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.

As for report cards, members of the family who brought home good grades were feted and rewarded.

"Chip off the old block," Dad would crow. "Youngest in his class, and he brings home all A's. I used to lead my class in the fifth grade, too, and I was always the one picked to draw the turkey on the blackboard come Thanksgiving. My only bad subject was spelling. Never learned to spell until I was a grown man. I used to tell the teachers that I'd be able to hire a bunch of stenographers to do my spelling for me."

Then he'd lean back and roar. You couldn't tell whether he was really bragging, or just teasing you.

Children who brought home poor grades were made to study during the afternoon, and were tutored by the older ones and Mother and Dad. But Dad seldom scolded for this offense. He was convinced that the low marks were merely an error of judgment on the teacher's part.

"That teacher must not know her business," he'd grumble for Mother's benefit. "Imagine failing one of my children. Why, she doesn't even have the sense to tell a smart child from a moron."

When we moved to Montclair, the business of enrolling us in the public schools was first on the agenda. Dad loaded seven of us in the Pierce Arrow and started out.

"Follow me, Live Bait," he said. "I'm going to enjoy this. We are going to descend upon the halls of learning. Remember, this is one of the most important experiences of your life. Make the most of it and keep your eyes and ears open. Let me do the talking."

The first stop was Nishuane, the elementary school, an imposing and forbidding structure of dark red brick. At its front were two doors, one marked "Boys," the other "Girls."

"Frank, Bill, Lill, and Fred—this is your school," said Dad. "Come on, in we go. No dying cow looks. Hold your shoulders straight and look alive."

We piled out, hating it.

"You older girls, too," said Dad. "We may as well make an impression."

"Oh, no, Daddy."

"What's the matter with you? Come on!"

"But this isn't our school."

"I know it, but we may as well show them what a real family looks like. Wonder if I have time to run home and get your Mother and the babies."

That was enough to cause the older girls to jump quickly out of the car.

As we approached the door marked "Boys," the girls turned and started for the other entrance.

"Here, where are you girls going?" Dad asked.

"This is the girls' door over this way."

"Nonsense," said Dad. "We don't have to pay any attention to those foolish rules. What are they trying to do here, anyway? Regiment the kids?"

"Hush, Daddy. They'll hear you."

"Suppose they do. They're going to hear from me soon enough, anyway."

We all went in through the door marked "Boys." Classes already were in session, and you could see the children watching us through the open doors as we walked down the corridor to the principal's office. One teacher came gasping to the doorway.

"Good morning, Miss," said Dad, bowing with a flourish. "Just a Gilbreth invasion—or a partial invasion, I should say, since I left most of them at home with their mother. Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

"It certainly is," she smiled.

The principal of Nishuane was an elderly lady, almost as plump as Dad, and much shorter. She had the most refined voice in the Middle Atlantic States. Probably she was a very kind, gracious woman, but she was a principal, and we were scared of her. All but Dad.

"Good morning, Ma'am," he said, with another bow. "I'm Gilbreth."

"How do you do. I've heard of you."

"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."

"Just so. I'll take care of everything, Mr. Gilbreth. And I'm glad you dropped in."

"Wait a minute," said Dad. "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."

"I'll be glad to introduce you to the teachers, Mr. Gilbreth. As to the classes they will enter, that depends on their ages."

"Hold on, hold on," Dad put in. "Depends on age, yes. Mental age. Come here, Bill. How old are you? Eight, isn't it?"

Bill nodded.

"What grade do eight-year-olds usually belong in?"

"The third," the principal replied.

"I want him in the fifth, please."

"The fourth," said the principal. But you could tell that she was beaten.

"Ma'am," said Dad. "Do you know the capital of Colombia? Do you know the population of Des Moines, according to the 1910 census? I know you do, being the principal. So does Bill, here. So does little Jackie, but I had to leave him home. It's time for his bottle."

"The fifth," said the principal.

After we were enrolled came the surprise visits that we used to dread, because Dad seemed to break all the school rules. He went in doors marked "Out," he went up stairs marked "Down," and he sometimes even wore his hat in the corridors. For any one of these offenses, a child might be kept after school for a week; for all three, he might be sent to reform school until his beard grew down to his knees. But the teachers always seemed to enjoy Dad's visits and the attention he gave them, and the principals—even the Nishuane principal—always were after him to speak at the school assemblies.

"If you had half the sense, or the manners, of your father or your mother," the teachers used to say, when they'd scold one of us.

Sometimes the class would be right in the middle of saluting the flag, when in would burst Dad, with a grin stretching from ear to ear. Even the kindergarten children knew of the inflexible rule against entering a room while the flag was being saluted. No pupil would have dared to do so, even to spread an alarm of fire, monsoon, or the black plague. Yet, there was Dad. The floor seemed to rock while you waited for Miss Billsop to bare her fangs and spring. But, instead, Miss Billsop would grin right back at him. Then Dad would salute the flag, too, and you'd hear his deep voice booming over that of the class: "One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Everybody in school knew that the Lord's Prayer followed the salute to the flag, and after that "justice for all" you were supposed to sit down and bow your head on your desk, with your eyes closed, waiting for the teacher to lead off with "Our Father, Who art in Heaven." And there was Dad.

"Good morning, Miss Billsop," he'd say. Then—and this was the worst of all—"Hello, Frank, Junior. I see you hiding behind that book. Sort of a surprise visit, eh? Hello, shavers. Excuse me for interrupting you. I'm Frank, Junior's, father. I won't take up much of your teacher's time. Then she can get back to the lessons I know you love so well."

The class would laugh, and Dad would laugh with them. He really loved kids.

"How is he getting along, Miss Billsop?" (Once he called her Milksop, by mistake, and sent her a dozen roses later that morning, as an apology.) "What's the story? Is he keeping up with his work? Does he need to study more at home? You're doing a fine job with him, and he's always quoting you around the house. Do you think he can skip the next grade? If he doesn't behave himself, just let me know."

Dad would listen to Miss Billsop for a few minutes, then drop you what might have been a wink, and burst out of the room again, to go to the classroom of another Gilbreth child.

Miss Billsop would still be smiling when she'd turn to the class.

"Now, children, we will bow our heads, close our eyes, and repeat the Lord's Prayer."

You'd wait anxiously for recess, knowing that you were going to have to fight if anyone so much as hinted that your father was a fat man, or that he didn't know the school rules even as well as a kindergarten child. But, instead, a couple of the kids would come up shyly and tell you:

"Gee, your old man is the cat's, all right. He's not scared of anything."

"Yeah," you'd say.

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."

They did, too.

Since Dad went to church only if one of us was being christened— in other words, about once a year— Mother had to carry the ball when it came to enrolling us in Sunday school. Dad said he believed in God, but that he couldn't stand clergymen.

"They give me the creeps," he said. "Show me a man with a loud mouth, a roving eye, a fat rear, and an empty head, and I'll show you a preacher."

Dad had crossed to Europe once on a liner carrying a delegation to a ministers' convention. It was on this trip that he had acquired most of his distaste for the reverends.

"They monopolized all the conversation at dinner," he complained—and it was obvious that this was the real sin he could never forgive. "They crawled out of every argument by citing the Lord God Jehovah as their authority. I was asked on an average of eight times a day, for eight miserable and consecutive days, to come to Jesus, whatever that is. And a stewardess told me that her behind had been pinched surreptitiously so many times between Hoboken and Liverpool that she had to eat off a mantelpiece."