Cheaper by the Dozen

deputize him to carry out the punishment.
    "With my compliments," Dad would say when the child with the full mouth turned furiously on the one who had knuckled him. "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times to cut your food up into little pieces. How am I going to drive that into your skull?"
    "Not on the head," Mother repeated. "Mercy, Maud, not on the head!"
    Anyone with an elbow on the table might suddenly feel his wrist seized, raised and jerked downward so that his elbow hit the table hard enough to make the dishes dance.
    "Not on the elbow, Frank. That's the most sensitive part of the body. Any place but on the elbow."
    Mother disapproved of all forms of corporal punishment. She felt, though, that she could achieve better results in the long run by objecting to the part of the anatomy selected for punishment, rather than the punishment itself. Even when Dad administered vitally needed punishment on the conventional area, the area where it is supposed to do the most good, Mother tried to intervene.
    "Not on the end of the spine," she'd say in a voice indicating her belief that Dad was running the risk of crippling us for life. "For goodness sakes, not on the end of the spine!"
    "Where, then?" Dad shouted furiously in the middle of one spanking. "Not on the top of the head, not on the side of the ear, not on the back of the neck, not on the elbow, not across the legs, and not on the seat of the pants. Where did your father spank you? Across the soles of the by jingoed feet like the heathen Chinese?"
    "Well, not on the end of the spine," Mother said. "You can be sure of that."
    Skull-rapping and elbow-thumping became a practice in which everybody in the family, except Mother, participated until Dad deemed our table manners satisfactory. Even the youngest child could mete out the punishment without fear of reprisal. All during meals, we watched each other, and particularly Dad, for an opportunity. Sometimes the one who spotted a perched elbow would sneak out of his chair and walk all the way around the table, so that he could catch the offender.
    Dad was quite careful about his elbows, but every so often would forget. It was considered a feather in one's cap to thump any elbow. But the ultimate achievement was to thump Dad's. This was considered not just a feather in the cap, but the entire head-dress of a full Indian chief.
    When Dad was caught and his elbow thumped, he made a great to-do over it. He grimaced as if in excruciating pain, sucked in air through his teeth, rubbed the elbow, and claimed he couldn't use his arm for the remainder of the meal.
    Occasionally, he would rest an elbow purposely on the edge of the table, and make believe he didn't notice some child who had slipped out of a chair and was tiptoeing toward him. Just as the child was about to reach out and grab the elbow, Dad would slide it into his lap.
    "I've got eyes in the back of my head," Dad would announce.
    The would-be thumper, walking disappointedly back to his chair, wondered if it wasn't just possible that Dad really did.
    Both Dad and Mother tried to impress us that it was our responsibility to make guests feel at home. There were guests for meals almost as often as not, particularly business friends of Dad's, since his office was in the house. There was no formality and no special preparations except a clean napkin and an extra place at the table.
    "If a guest is sitting next to you, it's your job to keep him happy, to see that things are passed to him," Dad kept telling us.
    George Isles, a Canadian author, seemed to Lillian to be an unhappy guest. Mr. Isles was old, and told sad but fascinating stories.
    "Once upon a time there was an ancient, poor man whose joints hurt when he moved them, whose doctor wouldn't let him smoke cigars, and who had no little children to love him," Mr. Isles said. He continued with what seemed to us to be a tale of overwhelming loneliness, and then concluded:
    "And do you know who that old man was?"
    We had an idea who it was, but we shook our heads and said we didn't. Mr. Isles looked sadder than ever. He slowly raised his forearm and tapped his chest with his forefinger.
    "Me," he said.
    Lillian, who was six, was sitting next to Mr. Isles. It was her responsibility to see that he was happy, and she felt somehow that she had failed on the job. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his dry, old man's cheek.
    "You do too have little children who love you," she said, on the brink of