Cheaper by the Dozen

you suppose she dreamed up those things, Frank?"
    Dad grinned and went on reading.
    "Mr. Gilbreth, the time study expert, entered the room on tiptoe so as not to disturb his wife's train of thought. Plump but dynamic, Mr. Gilbreth..."
    The grin faded and Dad tossed the newspaper from him in disgust. "What unspeakable claptrap," he grunted. "Of all the words in the English language, the one I like least is ‘plump.' The whole article is just a figment of the imagination."
    One newsreel photographer, who visited us in Nantucket, deliberately set out to make us look ridiculous. It wasn't a difficult job. If he was acting under instructions from his employers, he should have been paid a bonus.
    In good faith, Dad moved the dining room table, the chairs and his pew out onto the beach grass at the side of our cottage, where the newsreel man said the light would be best. There, amid the sandflies, we ate dinner while the cameraman took pictures.
    The newsreel, as shown in the movie houses, opened wife a caption which said, "The family of Frank B. Gilbreth, time-saver, eats dinner." The rest of it was projected at about ten times the normal speed. It gave the impression that we raced to the table, passed plates madly in all directions, wolfed our food, and ran away from the table, all in about forty-five seconds. In the background was the reason the photographer wanted us outside—the family laundry with, of course, the diapers predominating.
    We saw the newsreel at the Dreamland Theater in Nan-and it got much louder laughs than the comedy, which featured a fat actor named Lloyd Hamilton. Everyone in the Dreamland turned around and gaped at us, and we were humiliated and furious. We didn't even want to go to Coffin's Store for a soda, when Dad extended a half-hearted invitation after the show.
    "I hope it never comes to the Wellmont in Montclair," we kept repeating. "How can we ever go back to school?"
    "Well," Dad said, "it was a mean trick, all right, and I'd like to get my hands on that photographer. But it could have been worse. Do you know what I kept thinking all the way through it? I kept thinking that when it was over they probably were going to show it again, backwards, so that it would look as if we were regurgitating our food back on our plates. I'll swear, if they had done that I was going to wreck the place."
    "And I would have helped you," said Mother. "Honestly!"
    "Come on, it's water over the dam," Dad shrugged. "Let's forget it. Let's go up to Coffin's after all and get those sodas. I'm ready for a double chocolate soda. What do you say?"
    Under such relentless arm-twisting, we finally gave in and allowed ourselves to be taken to Coffin's.

Chapter 15
Gilbreths and Company

    Dad's theories ranged from Esperanto, which he made us study because he thought it was the answer to half the world's problems, to immaculate conception, which he said wasn't supported by available biological evidence. His theories on social poise, although requiring some minor revision as the family grew larger, were constant to the extent that they hinged on unaffectation.
    A poised, unaffected person was never ridiculous, at least in his own mind, Dad told us. And a man who didn't feel ridiculous could never lose his dignity. Dad seldom felt ridiculous, and never admitted losing his dignity.
    The part of the theory requiring some revision was that guests would feel at home if they were treated like one of our family. As Mother pointed out, and Dad finally admitted, the only guest who could possibly feel like a member of our family was a guest who, himself, came from a family of a dozen, headed by a motion study man.
    When guests weren't present, Dad worked at improving our table manners. Whenever a child within his reach took too large a mouthful of food, Dad's knuckles would descend sharply on the top of the offender's head, with a thud that made Mother wince.
    "Not on the head, Frank," she protested in shocked tones. "For mercy sakes, not on the head!"
    Dad paid no attention except when the blow had been unusually hard. In such cases he rubbed his knuckles ruefully and replied:
    "Maybe you're right. There must be softer places."
    If the offender was at Mother's end of the table, out of Dad's reach, he'd signal her to administer the skull punishment. Mother, who never disciplined any of us or even threatened discipline, ignored the signals. Dad then would catch the eye of a child sitting near the offender and, by signals, would