Cheaper by the Dozen

into the engine, leaving his feet dangling in mid-air. His head butted the top of the hood and his right wrist came up against the red-hot exhaust pipe. You could hear the flesh sizzle. Finally he managed to extricate himself. He rubbed his head, and left grease across his forehead. He blew on the burned wrist. He was livid.
    "Jesus Christ," he screamed, as if he had been saving this oath since his wedding day for just such an occasion. "Holy Jesus Christ. Who did that?"
    "Mercy, Maud," said Mother, which was the closest she ever came to swearing, too.
    Bill, who was six and always in trouble anyway, was the only one with nerve enough to laugh. But it was a nervous laugh at that.
    "Did you see the birdie, Daddy?" he asked.
    Dad grabbed him, and Bill stopped laughing.
    "That was a good joke on you, Daddy," Bill said hopefully. But there wasn't much confidence in his voice.
    "There is a time," Dad said through his teeth, "and there is a place for birdies. And there is a time and place for spankings."
    "I'll bet you jumped six and nine-tenths inches, Daddy," said Bill, stalling for time, now.
    Dad relaxed and let him go. "Yes, Billy, by jingo," he said. "That was a good joke on me, and I suspect I did jump six and nine-tenths inches."
    Dad loved a joke on himself, all right. But he loved it best a few months after the joke was over, and not when it was happening. The story about Bill and the birthe became one of his favorites. No one ever laughed harder at the end of the story than Dad. Unless it was Bill. By jingo.

Chapter 3
Orphans in Uniform

    When Dad decided he wanted to take the family for an outing in the Pierce Arrow, he'd whistle assembly, and then ask: "How many want to go for a ride?"
    The question was purely rhetorical, for when Dad rode, everybody rode. So we'd all say we thought a ride would be fine.
    Actually, this would be pretty close to the truth. Although Dad's driving was fraught with peril, there was a strange fascination in its brushes with death and its dramatic, traffic-stopping scenes. It was the sort of thing that you wouldn't have initiated yourself, but wouldn't have wanted to miss. It was standing up in a roller coaster. It was going up on the stage when the magician called for volunteers. It was a back somersault off the high diving board.
    A drive, too, meant a chance to be with Dad and Mother. If you were lucky, even to sit with them on the front seat. There were so many of us and so few of them that we never could see as much of them as we wanted. Every hour or so, we'd change places so as to give someone else a turn in the front seat with them.
    Dad would tell us to get ready while he brought the car around to the front of the house. He made it sound easy—as if it never entered his head that Foolish Carriage might not want to come around front. Dad was a perpetual optimist, confident that brains someday would triumph over inanimate steel; bolstered in the belief that he entered the fray with clean hands and a pure heart.
    While groans, fiendish gurglings and backfires were emitting from the bam, the house itself would be organized confusion, as the family carried out its preparations in accordance with prearranged plans. It was like a newspaper on election night; general staff headquarters on D-Day minus one.
    Getting ready meant scrubbed hands and face, shined shoes, clean clothes, combed hair. It wasn't advisable to be late, if and when Dad finally came rolling up to the porte-cochere. And it wasn't advisable to be dirty, because he'd inspect us all.
    Besides getting himself ready, each older child was responsible for one of the younger ones. Anne was in charge of pan, Ern in charge of Jack, and Mart in charge of Bob. This applied not only to rides in the car but all the time. The older sister was supposed to help her particular charge get dressed in the morning, to see that he made his bed, to put clean clothes on when he needed them, to see that he was washed and on time for meals, and to see that his process charts were duly initialed.
    Anne, as the oldest, also was responsible for the deportment and general appearance of the whole group. Mother, of course, watched out for the baby, Jane. The intermediate children, Frank, Bill, Lill and Fred, were considered old enough to look out for themselves, but not old enough to look after anyone else. Dad, for the purpose of convenience (his own), ranked himself with the intermediate category.
    In the last analysis, the person responsible