Cheaper by the Dozen

Anne asked.
    "His car? I haven't seen it, but I can imagine it. No doors, no fenders, no top, and a lot of writing about in case of fire throw this in. I wouldn't be seen dead in it, even if the dance was a masquerade and I was going as a cheerleader. No sir. We'll go in Foolish Carriage."
    "Sometimes," Anne said slowly, "it's hard to be the oldest. When I think of Ernestine, Martha, Lillian, Jane—they won't have to go through any of this. I wonder if they'll just take things for granted, or whether they'll appreciate what I've suffered for them."

    On the night of Anne's first date, we stationed ourselves at strategic windows so we could watch Joe Scales arrive. It wasn't every day that a cheerleader came to call.
    As Dad had predicted, Anne's friend drove up to the house in an ancient Model T, with writing on it. We could hear the car several blocks before it actually hove into sight, because it was equipped with an exhaust whistle that was allowed to function as a matter of routine. When the car proceeded at a moderate speed, which was hardly ever, the whistle sounded no worse than an hellish roar. But when young Mister Scales stepped on the gas, the roar became high pitched, deafening, and insane.
    As the Model T bumped down Eagle Rock Way, heads popped out of the windows of neighboring houses, dogs raced into the woods with their tails between their legs, and babies started to scream.
    The exhaust whistle, coupled with the natural engine noises, precluded the necessity of Mister Scales' giving any further notice about the car's arrival at its destination. But etiquette of the day was rigid, and he followed it to the letter. First he turned off the engine, which automatically and mercifully silenced the whistle. Then, while lounging in the driver's seat, he tooted and re-tooted the horn until Anne finally came to the front door.
    "Come on in, Joe," Anne called.
    "Okay, baby. Is your pop ready?"
    Dad was peeking at the arrival from behind a curtain in his office. "If he 'pops' me, I'll pop him." Dad whispered to Mother. "My God, Lillie. I mean, Great Caesar's ghost. Come here and look at him. It's Joe College in the flesh. And he just about comes up to Anne's shoulder."
    Anne's sheik was wearing a black-and-orange-striped blazer, gray Oxford bags, a bow tie on an elastic band, and a brown triangular porkpie hat, pinched into a bowsprit at the front.
    "You and I are going to the dance," Joe shouted to Anne, "And so's your Old Man. Get it? So's your Old Man."
    "Of course she gets it, wise guy," Dad grumbled for Mother's benefit. "What do you think she is, a moron? And let me hear you refer to me tonight as the 'Old Man' and you'll get it, too. I promise you."
    "Hush," Mother warned him, coming over to peek out the curtain. "He'll hear you. Actually, he's kind of cute, in a sort of vest-pocket way."
    "Cute?" said Dad. "He looks like what might happen if a pigmy married a barber pole. And look at that car. What's that written on the side? 'Jump in sardine, here's your tin.' "
    "Well don't worry about the car," Mother told him. "You'll be riding in yours, not that contraption."
    "Thank the Lord for small favors. You stall him and Anne off until I can get the side curtains put up. I'm not going to drive through town with that blazer showing. Someone might think he was one of our kids."
    Dad disappeared in the direction of the bam, and Mother went into the living room to meet the caller. As she entered, Joe was demonstrating to Frank and Bill how the bow tie worked.
    "It's a William Tell tie," he said, holding the bow away from his neck and allowing it to pop back into position. "You pull the bow and it hits the apple."
    Both Frank and Bill were impressed.
    "You're the first cheerleader we ever saw up close," Frank said. "Gee."
    Joe was sitting down when he was introduced to Mother. Remembering his manners, he tipped his hat, unveiling for just a moment a patent-leather hairdo, parted in the middle.
    "Will you lead some cheers for us?" Bill begged. "We know them all. Anne and Ernestine taught them to us."
    Joe leaped to his feet. "Sure thing," he said. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted in an adolescent baritone that cracked and made Mother shudder:
    "Let's have a hoo, rah, ray and a tiger for Montclair High. A hoo, rah, ray and a tiger. I want to hear you holler now. Readddy?"
    He turned sideways to us, dropped on one knee and made his fists go in a circle, like a squirrel on a treadmill.
    "Hoo," he