Cheaper by the Dozen

cute, it's our salvation. You wait and see."
    "What do you mean?"
    "When Daddy gets to know the boys, and sees that they're pretty good kids, he'll decide this chaperone business is a waste of time. He really hates being here, away from Mother. And if he can find a way to quit gracefully, he'll quit." Dad resigned as chaperone the next day, at Sunday dinner. "I'm all through wet nursing you," he told the girls. "If you want to go to the dogs—or at any rate to the tea hounds— you're going to have to go by yourselves from now on. I can't take any more of it."
    "They're really not bad kids, are they Daddy?" Anne grinned.
    "Bad kids? How do I know whether they're bad kids? Naturally they behave when I'm around. But that's not the point. The point is they're making a character out of me. They're setting me up as the meddlesome but harmless old duffer, a kind of big-hearted, well-meaning, asinine, mental eunuch. The boys slap me on the back and the girls pinch me on my cheek and ask me to dance with them. If there's anything I hate, it's a Daddy-Long-Legs kind of father like that."
    He turned to Mother.
    "I know it's not your fault, Boss, but things would have been a whole lot easier if we had had all boys, like I suggested, instead of starting out with the girls."
    From that day on, about the only contact Dad had with the sheiks was over the telephone.
    "Some simpleton with pimples in his voice wants to speak to Ernestine," he grumbled to Mother when he answered the phone. "I'll swear, I'm going to have that instrument taken out of here. These tea hounds are running me crazy. I wish they'd sniff around someone else's daughters for awhile, and give us some peace."

    Libby Holton, one of the girls in Anne's class, was from Mississippi and had only recently moved with her family to Montclair. She was pretty, mature for her age, and even the straight silhouette styles couldn't hide her figure. She was a heavy painter and wore the highest heels and the shortest skirts in the school. She looked like everything Dad said his daughters shouldn't look like.
    Libby was charming and popular. She and Anne became good friends, and Anne finally had her over for lunch. Libby's place was next to Dad's, and she was loaded with perfume— you could smell it the minute she walked into the house. Knowing how Dad disliked make-up and perfume, we were afraid he was going to make Anne's friend change her place at the table or, worse still, order her to go upstairs and wash herself.
    We might have saved ourselves the worry, because it soon became apparent that while Dad didn't like perfume on his own daughters, he didn't object to it on other people's daughters.
    "My, that smells good," he told Libby after he had been introduced. "I'm glad you're going to sit right here next to me, where I can keep an eye and a nose on you."
    "Why, I declare," said Libby. "Anne Gilbreth, you hussy you, why didn't you tell me you had such a gallant Daddy? And so handsome, too."
    "Oh, boy," groaned Bill.
    Libby turned to Bill and dropped him a slow, fluttering wink. "Ain't I the limit?" she laughed.
    "Oh, boy," said Bill. But this time it was more of a yodel than a groan.
    Both Anne and Libby worked hard on Dad all during lunch. He saw through them, but he enjoyed it. He imitated Libby's southern accent, called her Honey Chile and You-All, and outdid himself telling stories and jokes.
    "I heard from some of the other girls in school about how cute you were," said Libby. "They said the nicest things about you. And they said you used to come to all the dances, too."
    "That's right. And if I had known about the Mississippi invasion I would have started going to the dances all over again."
    After dessert, we sat around the table wondering what came next. We knew, and so did Dad, that it was a build up for something. Just as Dad finally pushed back his chair, Anne cleared her throat.
    "You know, Daddy, there's something I've been wanting to ask you for a long time."
    "And now, having been flattered, fattened, and fussed over, the sucker is led forward for the shake-down," Dad grinned. "Well, speak up girls. What is it?"
    "Why don't you take this afternoon off and teach Libby and me how to drive the car? We're almost old enough to get licenses, and it would be a big convenience for the whole family if someone besides you knew how to drive."
    "Is that all? You didn't need all the sweet-talk for that. I thought you were going to ask me to let you spend the weekend at