Cheaper by the Dozen

Once the train started up again, Mother would insist upon a roll call, after four days on the train, with no baths except for the sponge variety, we were not very sanitary when we reached California. Mother wanted us to look our best when we got off the train, and she planned to give each of us a personal scrubbing and see that we had on clean clothes, an hour or so before we got to Oakland.
    Her oldest brother, Uncle Fred, surprised her and us by boarding the train at Sacramento. He found us in the drawing room, in the middle of a meal. Suitcases were open on the floor, and there was a pile of diapers in a corner. The baby, still train sick, was crying in Mother's arms. Lill's foot was hurting, and she was crying on the couch. Bill was doing acrobatics on the bed. There were bowls of Cream of Wheat and graham crackers on a card table. The place smelled of Sterno and worse.
    Uncle Fred used to joke about it when we were older—it reminded him of a zoo, he said. But at the time you never would have known he noticed anything unusual.
    "Lillie, dear, it's good to see you," he said. "You look simply radiant. Not a day older."
    "Oh, Fred, Fred." Mother put down the baby, wiped her eyes apologetically, and dung to her brother. "It's ridiculous to cry, isn't it? But it means so much having you here."
    "Was it a hard trip, dear?"
    Mother was already bustling around, straightening up the drawing room.
    "I wouldn't want to do it every day," she admitted. "But it's almost over and you're here. You're my first taste of home."
    Uncle Fred turned to us. "Welcome to California," he said. "Don't tell me now. I can name each of you. Let's see, the baby here making all the noise, he's my namesake, Fred. And here's little Lill, of course, with the broken foot; and Billy…"
    "You're just like we imagined you," Martha told him, hanging onto his hand. "Are we like you imagined us?"
    "Just exactly," he said gravely. "Right down to the last freckle."
    "I hope you didn't imagine them like this," Mother said, but she was happy now. "Never mind. You'll never know them in a few minutes. You take the boys out into the car, and I'll start getting the girls cleaned up right now. Of course, none of them will be really clean until I can get them into a tub."
    We were presentable and on our best behavior when we finally arrived in Oakland, where Mother's sisters and other brothers were waiting wife the three limousines. It was a wonderful welcome, but we thought our aunts were the kiss-ingest kin in the world.
    "They must think we're sissies," whispered Bill, who was five and didn't like to be kissed by anyone except Mother, and only then in the privacy of his boudoir.
    "Lillie, dear, it's good to see you, and the dear children," they kept repeating.
    Each of us had a godparent among Mother's brothers and sisters, and now the godparents began sorting us out.
    "Here, little Ernestine, you come with me, dear," said Aunt Ernestine.
    "Come, Martha, dear," said Aunt Gertrude. "You're mine."
    "Give me your hand, Frank, dear," said Aunt Elinor.
    "Dear this and dear that," Billy whispered scornfully.
    "Where's dear Billy?" asked Aunt Mabel.
    "Right here, dear," said Bill.
    But Bill, like the rest of us, felt happy and warm inside because of the welcome.
    The aunts led us over to the automobiles, where Henriette, in black puttees and with a stiff-brimmed cap tucked under his arm, was standing at rigid attention. Uncle Frank and Uncle Bill got behind the wheels of the other two machines.
    The glassed-in cars seemed formal and luxurious as we drove from the station to Twenty-ninth Street, and Henriette managed to remain at attention even when sitting down. We wondered what Daddy would say about Henriette. Certainly rigid attention wasn't the most efficient way to drive an automobile. Anyone with half an eye could see the posture was fatiguing to the point of exhaustion. It was some class, though.
    Frank and Bill started to crank down the windows so they could put out their hands when he turned the corners, but Anne and Ernestine shook their heads.
    "And the first one who hollers 'road hog' is going to get a punch in the nose," Ernestine whispered.
    Mother's father and mother—Papa and Grosie, we called them—were waiting for us on the. steps of the house. We thought they were picture-book grandparents. Papa was tall, lean and courtly, with a gates-ajar collar, string tie, and soft, white moustache. Grosie was short and fragile, with a gray pompadour and