Cheaper by the dozen - Chapter 11: Nantucket

Nội dung text: Cheaper by the dozen - Chapter 11: Nantucket

1. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN The cottage and lighthouses were situated on a flat stretch of land between the By Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. fashionable Cliff and the Bathing Beach. Besides our place, there was only one other house in the vicinity. This belonged to an artist couple named Whitney. But after our first summer at Nantucket, the Whitneys had their house jacked up, placed on rollers, and moved a mile away to a vacant lot near the tip of Brant Point. After that, we had the strip of land all to ourselves. Customarily, en route from Montclair to Nantucket, we spent the night in a hotel in New London, Connecticut. Dad knew the hotel manager and all of the men at the desk, and they used to exchange loud and good-natured insults for the benefit of the crowds that followed us in from the street. "Oh, Lord, look what's coming," the manager called when we entered the door. And then to an assistant. "Alert the fire department and the house detective. It's the Gilbreths. And take that cigar cutter off the counter and lock it in the safe." "Do you still have that dangerous guillotine?" Dad grinned. "I know you'll be disappointed to hear that the finger grew in just as good as new. Show the man your finger, Ernestine." Ernestine held up the little finger of her right hand. On a previous visit, she had pushed it inquisitively into the cigar cutter, and had lost about an eighth of an inch of it. She had bled considerably on a rug, while Dad tried to fashion a tourniquet and roared inquiries about whether there was a doctor in the house. "Tell me," Dad remarked as he picked up a pen to register in the big book, "do my Irishmen come cheaper by the dozen ?" "Irishmen! If I were wearing a sheet, you'd call them Arabs. How many of them are there, anyway? Last year, when I went to make out your bill, you claimed there were only seven. I can count at least a dozen of them now." "It's quite possible there may have been some additions since then," Dad CHAPTER 11 conceded. "Front, boy. Front, boy. Front, boy. Front, boy. You four boys show Mr. and Nantucket Mrs. Gilbreth and their seven—or so— Irishmen to 503, 504, 505, 506, and 507. And mind you take good care of them, too." We spent our summers at Nantucket, Massachusetts, where Dad bought two lighthouses, which had been abandoned by the government, and a ramshackle When we first started going to Nantucket, which is off the tip of Cape Cod, cottage, which looked if it had been abandoned by Coxey's Army. Dad had the automobiles weren't allowed on the island, and we'd leave the Pierce Arrow in a lighthouses moved so that they flanked the cottage. He and. Mother used one of garage at New Bedford, Massachusetts. Later, when the automobile ban was them as an office and den. The other served as a bedroom for three of the lifted, we'd take the car with us on the Gay Head or the Sankaty, the steamers children. which plied between the mainland and the island. Dad had a frightening time He named the cottage The Shoe, in honor of Mother, who, he said, reminded backing the automobile up the gangplank. Mother insisted that we get out of the him of the old woman who lived one. car and stand clear. Then she'd beg Dad to put on a life preserver. "I know you and it are going into the water one of these days," she warned. FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, March 1, 2020
2. "Doesn't anybody, even my wife, have confidence in my driving?" he would Four crew members, armed with crab nets, climbed to the roof of the moan. Then on a more practical "Besides, I can swim." warehouse. While passengers shouted encourage¬ment from the rail, the men The biggest problem, on the boat and in the car, was Martha's two canaries, chased the birds across the roof, back to the dock, onto the rigging of the ship, which she had won for making the best recitation in Sunday school. All of us, and back to the warehouse again. Finally Peter and Maggie disappeared except Dad, were fond of them. Dad called one of them Shut Up and the other al¬together, and the captain had to give up. You Heard Me. He said they smelled so much that they ruined his whole trip, "I'm sorry, Mr. Gilbreth," he said. "I guess we'll have to shove off without your and were the only creatures on earth with voices louder than his children. Tom canaries." Grieves, the handyman, who had to clean up the cage, named the birds Peter Soil "You've been too kind already," Dad beamed. Dad felt good for the rest of the and Maggie Mess. Mother wouldn't let us use those full names, she said they trip, and even managed to convince Martha of the wisdom of throwing the were "Eskimo." (Eskimo was Mother's description of anything that was off- empty, but still smelly, bird cage over the side of the ship. color, revolting, or evil-minded.) We called the birds simply Peter and Maggie. The next day, after we settled in our cottage, a cardboard box arrived from the On one trip, Fred was holding the cage on the stern of the ship, while Dad captain. It was addressed to Fred, and it had holes punched in the top. backed the car aboard. Somehow, the wire door popped open and the birds "You don't have to tell me what's in it," Dad said glumly. "I've got a nose." He escaped. They flew to a piling on the dock, and then to a roof of a warehouse. reached in his wallet and handed Martha a bill. "Take this and go down to the When Dad, with the car finally stowed away, appeared on deck, three of the village and buy another cage. And after this, I hope you'll be more careful of younger children were sobbing. They made so much noise that the captain heard your belongings." them and came off the bridge. "What's the trouble now, Mr. Gilbreth?" he asked. Our cottage had one small lavatory, but no hot water, shower, or bathtub. Dad "Nothing," said Dad, who saw a chance to put thirty miles between himself and thought that living a primitive life in summer was healthful. He also believed the canaries. "You can shove off at any time, captain." that cleanliness wa next to godliness, and as a result all of us had to go "No one tells me when to shove off until I'm ready to shove off," the captain swim¬ming at least once a day. The rule was never waived, eve when the announced stubbornly. He leaned over Fred. "What's the matter, son?" temperature dropped to the fifties, and a cold, gray rain was falling. Dad would "Peter and Maggie," bawled Fred. "They've gone over the rail." lead the way from the house the beach, dog-trotting, holding a bar of soap in one "My God," the captain blanched. "I've been afraid this would happen ever since hanc and beating his chest with the other. you Gilbreths started coming to Nantucket." "Look out, ocean, here comes a tidal wave. Brrr. Last one in is Kaiser Bill." "Peter and Maggie aren't Gilbreths," Dad said irritatedly. "Why don't you just Then he'd take a running dive and disappear in a geyser of spray. He'd swim forget about the whole thing and shove off?" under water a ways, allow his feet to emerge wiggle his toes, swim under water The captain leaned over Fred again. "Peter and Maggie who? Speak up, boy!" some more, and then cc up head first, grinning and spitting a thin stream, of Fred stopped crying. "I'm not allowed to tell you their last names," he said. ware through his teeth. "Mother says they're Eskimo." "Come on," he'd call. "It's wonderful once you get in." And he'd start lathering The captain was bewildered. "I wish someone would make sense," he himself with soap. complained. "You say Peter and Maggie, the Eskimos, have disappeared over Mother was the only non-swimmer, except the babies. She hated cold water, she the rail?" hated salt water, and she hated bathing suits. Bathing suits itched her, and Fred nodded. Dad pointed to the empty cage. "Two canaries," Dad shouted, although she wore the most conservative models, with long sleeves and black "known as Peter and Maggie and by other aliases, have flown the coop. No stockings, she never felt modest in them. Dad used to say Mother put on more matter. We wouldn't think of delaying you further." clothes than she took off when she went swimming. "Where did they fly to, sonny?" Mother's swims consisted of testing the water with the tip of a black bathing Fred pointed to the roof of the warehouse. The captain sighed. shoe, wading cautiously out to her knees, making some tentative dabs in the "I can't stand to see children cry," he said. He walked back to the bridge and water with her hands, splashing a few drops on her shoulders, and, finally, in a started giving orders. mo¬ment of supreme courage, pinching her nose and squatting down until the FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, March 1, 2020
3. water reached her chest. The nose-pinch was an unnecessary precaution, because because the human body, when inflated with air, is lighter than water." "You her nose never came within a foot of the water. know I always sink." Then, with teeth chattering, she'd hurry back to the house, where she'd take a "That was last year. Try it now. Be a sport. I won't let any¬thing happen to cold water sponge bath, to get rid of the salt. you." "I don't want to." "My, the water was delightful this morning, wasn't it?" she'd say brightly at the "You don't want to show the white feather in front of the kids." lunch table. "I don't care if I show the whole albatross," Mother said. "But I don't suppose "I've seen fish who found the air more delightful than you do the water," Dad I'll have another minute's peace until I’ll try it. So here goes. And remember, I'm would remark. counting on you not to let anything happen to me." As in every other phase of teaching, Dad knew his business as a swimming "You'll float. Don't worry." instructor. Some of us learned to swim when we were as young as three years Mother took a deep breath, stretched herself out on the surface, and sank like a old, and all of us had learned by the time we were five. It was a sore point with stone. Dad waited a while, still con-; vinced that under the laws of physics she Dad that Mother was the only pupil he ever had encountered with whom he had must ultimately rise. When she didn't, he finally reached down in disgust and no success. fished her up. Mother was gagging, choking up water, and furious. "This summer," he'd tell Mother at the start of every vaca¬tion, "I'm really "See what I mean?" she finally managed. going to teach you, if it's the last thing I do. It's dangerous not to know how to Dad was furious, too. "Are you sure you didn't do that on purpose?" he asked swim. What would you do if you were on a boat that sank? Leave me with a her. dozen chil¬dren on my hands, I suppose! After all, you should have some "Mercy, Maud," Mother sputtered. "Mercy, mercy, Maud. Do you think I like it consideration for me." down there in Davey Jones’ locker?’ "I'll try again," Mother said patiently. But you could tell she knew it was “Davey Jones’ locker,” scoffed Dad. “Why you weren’t even four feet under hopeless. water. You weren’t even in his attic.” Once they had gone down to the beach, Dad would take her hand and lead her. “Well, it seemed like his locker to me. And I’m never going down there again. Mother would start out bravely enough, but would begin holding back about the You ought to be convinced by now th Archimedes’ principle simply doesn’t time the water got to her knees. We'd form a ring around her and offer her what apply, so far as I am concerned.” encouragement we could. Coughing and blowing her nose, Mother started for the beach. "That's the girl, Mother," we'd say. "It's not going to hurt you. Look at me. Look “I still don’t understand it,” Dad muttered. “She’s right. It completely refutes at me." Archimedes.” "Please don't splash," Mother would say. "You know how I hate to be * splashed." * * "For Lord's sakes, Lillie," said Dad. "Come out deeper." "Isn't this deep Dad had promised before we came to Nantucket that there would be no formal enough?" studying—no language records and no school books. He kept his promise, "You can't learn to swim if you're hard aground." "No matter how deep we go, I although we found he was always teaching us things informally, when our backs always end up aground anyway." were turned. "Don't be scared, now. Come on. This time it will be dif¬ferent. You'll see." For instance, there was the matter of the Morse code. Dad towed her out until the water was just above her waist. "Now the first thing "I have a way to teach you the code without any studying," he announced one you have to do," he said, "is to learn the dead man's float. If a dead man can do day at lunch. it, so can you." "I don't even like its name. It sounds ominous." "Like this, We said we didn't want to learn the code, that we didn't want to learn anything Mother. Look at me." until school started in the fall. "You kids clear out," said Dad. "But, Lillie, if the children can do it, you, a "There's no studying," said Dad, "and the ones who learn it first will get rewards. grown woman, should be able to. Come on now. You can't help but float, The ones who don't learn it are going to wish they had." FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, March 1, 2020
4. A fter lunch, he got a small paint brash and a can of black enamel, and locked In the knickers' pocket and in the drawer would be some sort of reward—a himself in the lavatory, where he painted the alphabet in code on the wall. Hershey bar, a quarter, a receipt entitling the bearer to one cocolate ice cream For the next, three days Dad was busy with his paint brash, writing code over soda at Coffin's Drug Store, payable by Dad on demand. the whitewash in every room in The Shoe. On the ceiling in the dormitory Some of the Morse code notes were false alarms. "Hello, Live Bait. This one is bedrooms, he wrote the alphabet together with key words, whose accents were a on the house. No reward. But there may be a reward next time. When you finish reminder of the code for the various letters. It went like this: A, dot-dash, a- reading this, dash off like mad so the next fellow will think you are on some hot BOUT; B, dash-dot-dot-dot, BOIS-ter-ous-ly; C, dash-dot-dash-dot, CARE-less clue. Then he'll read it, too, and you won't be the only one who got fooled. CHILD-ren; D, dash-dot-dot, DAN-ger-ous, etc. Daddy." When you lay on your back, dozing, the words kept go¬ing through your head, As Dad had planned, we all knew the Morse code fairly well within a few and you'd find yourself saying, "DAN-ger-ous, dash-dot-dot, DAN-ger-ous." weeks. Well enough, in fact, so that we could tap out messages to each other by He painted secret messages in code on the walls of the front porch and dining bouncing the tip of a fork on a butter plate. When a dozen or so persons all room. attempt to broadcast in this manner, and all of us preferred sending to receiving, "What do they say, Daddy?" we asked him. the accumulation is loud and nerve-shattering. A present-day equivalent might "Many things," he replied mysteriously. "Many secret things and many things of be repro¬duced if the sound-effects man on Gangbusters and Walter Winchell great humor." should go on the air simultaneously, before a battery of powerful amplifiers. We went into the bedrooms and copied the code alphabet on pieces of paper. The wall-writing worked so well in teaching us the code that Dad decided to use Then, referring to the paper, we started translating Dad's messages. He went the same system to teach us astronomy. His first step was to capture our interest, right on painting, as if he were paying no attention to us, but he didn't miss a and he did this by fashioning a telescope from a camera tripod and a pair of word. binoculars. He'd tote the contraption out into the yard on dear nights, and look at "Lord, what awful puns," said Anne. "And this, I pre¬sume, is meant to fit into the stars, while apparently ignoring us. the category of things of great humor.' Listen to this one: 'Bee it ever so bumble We'd gather around and nudge him, and pull at his clothes, demanding that he there's no place like comb’ " let us look through the telescope. "And we're stung," Ern moaned. "We're not going to be satisfied until we "Don't bother me," he'd say, with his nose stuck into the glasses. "Oh, my golly, translate them all. I see dash-dot-dash-dot, and I hear myself repeating CARE- I believe those two stars are going to collide! No. Awfully dose, though. Now less CHILD-ren. What's this one say?" I've got to see what the Old Beetle's up to. What a star, what a star!" We figured it out: "When igorots is bliss, 'tis folly to be white." And another, by "Daddy, give us a turn," we'd insist. "Don't be a pig." Finally, with assumed courtesy of Mr. Irvin S. Cobb, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may reluctance, he agreed to let us look through the glasses. We could see the ring on diet." And still another, which Mother made Dad paint out, "Two maggots were Saturn, three moons on Jupiter, and the craters on our own moon. Dad's favorite fighting in dead Ernest." star was Betelgeuse, the yellowish red "Old Beetle" in the Orion constellation. "That one is Eskimo," said Mother. "I won't have it in my dining room, even in He took a personal interest in her, because some of his friends were Morse code." collaborating in experiments to measure her diameter by Michelson's "All right, boss," Dad grinned sheepishly. "I'll paint over it. It's already served interferometer. its purpose, anyway." When he finally was convinced he had interested us in astronomy, Dad started a Every day or so after that, Dad would leave a piece of paper, containing a Morse new series of wall paintings deal¬ings with stars. On one wall he made a scale code message, on the dining room table. Translated, it might read something like drawing of the major planets, ranging from little Mercury, represented by a this: "The first one who figures out this secret message should look in the right circle about as big as a marble, to Jupiter, as big as a basketball. On another, he hand pocket of my linen knickers, hang¬ing on a hook in my room. Daddy." Or: showed the planets in relation to their distances from the sun, with Mercury the "Hurry up before someone beats you to it, and look in the bottom, left drawer of dosest and Neptune the farthest away—almost in the kitchen. Pluto still hadn't the sewing machine." been discovered, which was just as well, because there really wasn't room for it. FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, March 1, 2020
5. Dr. Harlow Shapley of Harvard gave Dad a hundred or more photographs of his eye. That is "search," the first Therblig. His eye finds it and comes to rest— stars, nebulae and solar edipses. Dad hung these on the wall, near the floor. He that's "find," the second Therblig. Third comes "select," the process of sliding explained that if they were up any higher, at the conventional level for pictures, the razor prior to the fourth Therblig, "grasp." Fifth is "transport loaded," the smaller diildren wouldn't be able to see them. bringing the razor up to the face, and sixth is "position," getting the razor set on There was still some wall space left, and Dad had more than enough ideas to fill the face. There are eleven other Therbligs—the last one is "think!" it. He tacked up a piece of cross-section graph paper, which was a thousand lines When Dad made a motion study, he broke down each operation into a Therblig, long and a thousand lines wide, and thus contained exactly a million little and then tried to reduce the time taken to perform each Therblig. Perhaps certain squares. parts to be assembled could be painted red and others green, so as to reduce the "You hear people talk a lot about a million," he said, "but not many people have time required for "search" and "find." ever seen exactly a million things at the same time. If a man has a million Perhaps the parts could be moved closer to the object being assembled, so as to dollars, he has exactly as many dollars as there are little squares on that chart." reduce the time required for "transport loaded." "Do you have a million dollars, Daddy?" Bill asked. Every Therblig had its own symbol, and once they were painted on the wall "No," said Dad a little ruefully. "I have a million chil¬dren, instead. Somewhere Dad had us apply them to our household chores-—bedmaking, dishwashing, along the line, a man has to choose between the two." sweeping, and dusting. He painted diagrams in the dining room showing the difference between meters Meanwhile, The Shoe and the lighthouses had become a stop on some of the and feet, kilograms and pounds, liters and quarts. And he painted seventeen Nantucket sightseeing tours. The stop didn't entail getting out of the carriages or, mysterious-looking, representing each of the Therbligs, on a wall near the front later, the buses. But we'd hear the drivers giving lurid and inaccurate accounts of door. the history of the place and the family which inhabited it. Some individuals The Therbligs were discovered, or maybe a better word would be diagnosed, by occasionally would come up to the door and ask if they could peek in, and if the Dad and Mother. Everybody has seventeen of them, they said, and the Therbligs house was presentable we'd usually show them around. can be used in such a way as to make life difficult or easy for their possessor. Then, unexpectedly, the names of strangers started appearing in a guest book A lazy man, Dad believed, always makes the best use of his Therbligs because which we kept in the front room. "Are these friends of yours?" Dad asked he is too indolent to waste motions. Whenever Dad started to do a new motion Mother. "I never heard of them before. Maybe they're friends of the children." study project at a factory, he'd always begin by announcing he wanted to When we said we didn't know them, Dad questioned Tom Grieves, who photograph the motions of the laziest man on the job. admitted readily enough that he had been showing tourists through the house and "The kind of fellow I want," he'd say, "is the fellow wl is so lazy he won't even lighthouses, while we were at the beach. Tom's tour included the dormitories; scratch himself. You must have of those around some place. Every factory has Mother's and Dad's room, where the baby stayed; and even the lavatory, where them." he pointed out the code alphabet. Some of the visitors, seeing the guest book on Dad named the Therbligs for himself—Gilbreth spelled it backwards, with a the table, thought they were supposed to sign. Tom stood at the front door as the slight variation. They were the basic theorems of his business and resulted tourists filed out, and frequently collected tips. indirectly in such things as foot levers to open garbage cans, special chairs for Mother was irked. "I never heard of such a thing in all my born days. Imagine factory workers, redesign of typewriters, and some aspects of the assembly taking perfect strangers though our bedrooms, and the house a wreck, most line technique. likely." Using Therbligs, Dad had shown Regal Shoe Company clerks how they could "Well," said Dad, who was convinced the tourists had come to see his visual take a customer's shoe off in seven seconds, and put it back on again and lace it education methods, "there's no need for us to be selfish about the ideas we've up in twenty-two seconds. developed. Maybe it's not a bad plan to let the public see what we're doing." He Actually, a Therblig is a unit of motion or thought. Suppose a man goes into the leaned back reflectively in his chair, an old mahogany pew from some church. bathroom to shave. We'll assume , that his face is all lathered and he is ready to Dad had found the pew, disassembled, in the basement of our cottage. He had pick up his razor. He knows where the razor is, but first he must locate it with resurrected it reverently, rubbed it down, put it together, and varnished it. The FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, March 1, 2020
6. pew was his seat of authority in The Shoe, and the only chair which fitted him comfortably and in which he could place complete confidence. "I wonder how much money Tom took in," he said to Mother. "Maybe we could work out some sort of an arrangement so that Tom could split tips from future admissions " "The idea!" said Mother. "There'll be no future admissions. The very idea." "Can't you take a joke? I was only joking. Where's your sense of humor?" "I know." Mother nodded her head. "I'm not supposed to have any. But did you ever stop to think that there might be some women, somewhere, who might think their husbands were joking if they said they had bought two lighthouses and " Dad started to laugh, and as he rocked back and forth' he shook the house so that loose whitewash flaked off the ceiling and landed on the top of his head. When Dad laughed, everybody laughed—you couldn't help it. And Mother, after a losing battle to remain severe, joined in. "By jingo," he wheezed. "And I guess there are some women, somewhere, who wouldn't want the Morse code, and planets, and even Therbligs, painted all over the walk of their house, either. Come over here, boss, and let me take back everything I ever said about your sense of humor." Mother walked over and brushed the whitewash out of what was left of his hair. THE BOOK COVERS BY BANTAM BOOKS, INC. - 1963 to be continued FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, March 1, 2020