Cheaper by the dozen - Chapter 14: Flash fowder and funerals

Nội dung text: Cheaper by the dozen - Chapter 14: Flash fowder and funerals

1. Probably few men have walked away from larger flashlight explosions than those Dad CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN set off as a matter of routine. The ceilings of some of the rooms in Montclair bore By Frank BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. charred, black circles, in mute testimony to his intrepidity as an exploder. Some of the professional photographers, seeing him load a flash gun, would blanch, mutter, and hasten from the room. "I know what I’m doing,” Dad would shout after them irritably. "Go ahead, then, if you don’t want to learn anything. But when I’m through, just compare the finished product with the kind of work you do.” The older children had been through it so often that, while somewhat shellshocked, they were no longer terrified. It would be stretching a point to say they had developed any real confidence in Dad's indoor photography. But at least they had adopted a fatalistic attitude that death, if it came, would be swift and painless. The younger children, unfortunately, had no such comforting philosophy to fall back on. Even the Latest Model was aware that all hell was liable to break loose at any time after Dad CHAPTER 14 submerged under the black cloth. They’d behave pretty well right up to the time Dad was going to take the picture. Then Flash Fowder and Funerals they’d start bellowing. NEXT to motion study and astronomy, photography was the science nearest to Dad's “Lillie, stop those children from crying,” Dad would shout from under the black cloth. heart. He had converted most of the two-story barn in Montclair into a photographic “Dan, open your eyes and take your fingers out of your ears! The idea! Scared of a little laboratory. It was here that Mr. Coggin, Dad’s English photographer, held forth behind flash! And stop that fidgeting, all of you.” a series of triple-locked doors. Children made Mr. Coggin nervous, particularly when He’d come up in disgust from under the cloth. It was hot under there, and the bending they opened the door of his darkroom when he was in the middle of developing a over had made the blood run to his head. week’s supply of film. Even in front of Dad and Mother, he referred to us as blighters “Now stop crying, all of you,” he’d say furiously. “Do you hear me? Next time I go and beggars. Behind their backs, he called us’orse thieves, bloody barsteds, and worse. under there I want to see all of you smiling.” At one time,shortly after Dad had had an addition built on our cottage at Nantucket, he He’d submerge again. “I said stop that crying. Now smile, or I’ll come out and give told Mr. Coggin: you something to cry about. Smile so I can see the whites of your teeth. That’s more “I want you to go up there and get some pictures of the ell on the house.” like it.” “Haw,” said Mr. Coggin. “I’ve taken many a picture of the ’ell in your ’ouse. But this He’d slip a plate holder into the back of the camera. will be the first time I’ve taken one of the ’ell on your ’ouse.” “Ready? Ready? Smile now. Hold it. Hold it. Hooold it.” When Mr. Coggin departed after the unfortunate debacle concerning our tonsils, a He’d wave the toy furiously and then there’d be an awful, blinding, roaring flash that series of other professional cameramen came and went. Dad always thought, and with shook the room and deposited a fine ash all over us and the floor. Dad would come up, some justification, that none of the professionals were as good a photographer as he. sweaty but grinning. Consequently, when it came to taking pictures of the family, Dad liked to do the job He’d look to see whether the ceiling was still there, and then put down the flash gun himself. and go over and open the windows to let out a cloud of choking smoke that made your He liked to do the job as often as possible, rain or shine, day or night, summer or eyes water. winter, and especially on Sundays. Most photographers prefer sunlight for their pictures. “I think that was a good picture,” he’d say. “And this new flash gun certainly works But Dad liked it best when there was no sun and he had an excuse to take his pictures fine. Don’t go away now. I want to take one more as soon as the smoke clears. I’m not indoors. He seemed to have a special affinity for flashlight powder, and the bigger the sure I had quite enough light that time.” flash the more he enjoyed it. For photographs taken in the sunlight, Dad had a delayed-action release that allowed He’d pour great, gray mountains of the powder into the pan at the top of his T-shaped him to click the camera and then run and get into the picture himself before the shutter flash gun, and hold this as far over his head as possible with his left hand, while he was released. While outdoor pictures did away with the hazard of being blown through burrowed beneath a black cloth at the stern of the camera. In his right hand, he’d hold the ceiling, they did not eliminate the hazards connected with Dad’s temper. the shutter release and a toy of some kind, which he’d shake and rattle to get our The most heavily relied upon prop for outdoor pictures was the family Pierce Arrow, attention. parked with top down in the driveway. FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN - CHAPTER 14 SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, Feb. 04th, 2020
2. Once we were seated to Dad’s satisfaction, he would focus, tell us to smile, click the Dad had a knack for setting up publicity pictures that tied in with his motion-study delayed-action release, and race for the driver’s seat. He’d arrive there panting, and the projects. While he was working for the Remington people, there were the news reels of car would lurch as he jumped in. When conditions were ideal, there would be just us typing touch system on Moby Dick, the white typewriter with the blind keys. Later, enough time for Dad to settle himself and smile pleasantly, before the camera clicked when he got a job with an automatic pencil company, he decided to photograph us off the exposure. burying a pile of wooden pencils. Conditions were seldom ideal, for the delayed action release was unreliable. We were in Nantucket at the time. Tom Grieves built a realistic-looking black coffin Sometimes it went off too soon, thus featuring Dad’s blurred but ample stern as he out of a packing case. For weeks we bought and collected wooden pencils, until we had climbed into the car. Sometimes it didn’t go off for a matter of minutes, during which enough to fill the coffin. we sat tensely, with frozen-faced smiles, while we tried to keep the younger children We carried the casket to a sand dune between The Shoe and the ocean, where Dad and from squirming. Dad, with the camera side of his mouth twisted into a smile, would Tom dug a shallow grave. It was a desolate, windswept spot. The neighbors on the Cliff, issue threats from the other side about what he was going to do to all of us if we so doubtless concluding that one of us had fallen down and had had to be destroyed, I much as twitched a muscle or batted an eyelash. watched our actions through binoculars. Occasionally, when the gambling instinct got the better of him, he’d try to turn around Dad set up a still camera on a tripod, connected the delayedaction attachment, and took and administer one swift disciplinary stroke, and then turn back again in time to smile a series of pictures showing us lowering the coffin into the grave and covering it with before the camera went off. Once, when he lost the gamble, an outstanding action sand. picture resulted, which showed Dad landing a well-aimed and well-deserved clout on “We’ll have to dig up the coffin now and do the same thing all over again so we can the side of Frank's head. get the movies,” Dad said. “We’re going to hit them coming and going with this one.” Any number of pictures showed various members of the family, who had received We dug, being careful not to scratch up the coffin, and then sifted the sand from the discipline within a matter of seconds before the shutter clicked, looking anything but pencils. Tom cranked the movie camera while we went through the second funeral. pleasant in the swivel seats of the car. The swivel seat occupants received most of the Fortunately, it was before the days of sound movies, because Dad kept hollering discipline, because they were the easiest for Dad to reach, and no one liked to sit there instructions. when it was picture taking time. “Turn that crank twice a second, Tom. And one and two and three and four. Get out Sometimes newspaper photographers and men from Underwood and Underwood from in front of the camera, Ernestine, Marguerite Clark and Mary Pickford have things would come to the house to take publicity pictures. pretty well lined up out there, you know. Now then, everybody pick up the shovels and Dad would whistle assembly, take out his stopwatch, and demonstrate how quickly we heave in the sand. Look serious. This is a sad burial. could gather. Then he would show the visitors how we could type, send the Morse code, The good are often interred with their bones. So may it be with pencils. And one and multiply numbers, and speak some French, German, and Italian. Sometimes he'd holler two and “fire” and we'd drop to the floor and roll up in rugs. When we were through with the second funeral, Dad told us we’d have to dig up the Everything seemed to go much smoother when Dad was on our side of the camera, for coffin again. now he too was ordered where to stand, when to lick his lips, and, occasionally, to stop “You’re not going to take any more pictures, are you?” we begged. fidgeting. The rest of us had no trouble looking pleasant after the photographer lectured “We’ve taken the stills and the movies.” Dad. In fact, we looked so pleasant we almost popped. “Of course not,” said Dad. “But you don’t think we’re going to waste all those "Mr. Gilbreth, will you please stand still? And take your hands out of your pockets. perfectly good wooden pencils, do you? Dig them up and take them back into the house. Move a little closer to Mrs. Gilbreth. No, not that close. Look. I want you right here." They should last us for years.” The photographer would take him by the arm and place him. "Now try to look pleasant, In justification to Dad, it should be said that automatic pencils always were used once please." the supply of wooden ones was exhausted. Dad simply couldn’t stand seeing the "By jingo, I am looking pleasant," Dad finally would say impatiently. wooden ones wasted. "I can’t understand one thing," a man from Underwood and Underwood told Dad one The next summer, when Dad was hired as a consultant by a washing machine time after the picture-taking was over. "I've been out here several times now. company, we went through the same procedure with the washboard and hand-wringer at Everything always seems to be going fine until I put my head under the black cloth to Nantucket. This time, though, Tom was prepared. focus. Then, just as if it’s a signal, the four youngest ones start to cry and I never can get “Wait a minute, Mr. Gilbreth,” he said. “Before you bury my wringer I want to oil it them to stop until I put the cloth out of sight.” good, so I can get the sand off if when we dig it up again.” “Is that a fact?” was all the information Dad volunteered. FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN - CHAPTER 14 SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, Feb. 04th, 2020
3. “That might not be a bad idea,” Dad admitted. “After all,” he added defensively, “I Wilson. And I never said a thing about Czechoslovakia. And I hate and detest people bought you a washing machine for Montclair. I can’t have washing machines scattered who make depreciating moues. I never made one in my life, or at any rate not since I've all along the Atlantic seaboard, you know.” been old enough to know better." “I didn’t say nothing,” said Tom. “I just said I wanted to oil my wringer good, that’s Meanwhile, both Anne and Ern were near tears. all. I didn’t say nothing about a washing machine for Nantucket?" He started to mutter. “I can’t go back to school tomorrow," Anne said. “How can I face the class after that “Efficiency. All I hear around this house is efficiency, I’d like to make one of them business about the violin?" lectures about efficiency. The one best way to ruin a wringer is to bury the God-damned “How about me?" moaned Ern. “At least you own a violin and can make noises come thing in the sand, and then dig it up again. That’s motion study for you!" out of it. "Ernestine wants to be a painter? “What’s that?"" asked Dad. “Speak up if you have anything to say, and if you haven’t How could you tell her that, Mother? And my teacher is sure to read it out loud. She keep quiet."" always does.” Tom continued muttering. “Motion study is burying a Goddamned wringer in the sand "I didn’t tell her that or anything else in the article,” Mother insisted. “Where do you and getting the parts all gummed up so that it breaks your back to turn it. That"s motion suppose she dreamed up those things, Frank?” study, as long as it’s someone else’s motions your studying, and not your own. Lincoln Dad grinned and went on reading. freed the slaves. All but one. All but one.” "Mr. Gilbreth, the time study expert, entered the room on tiptoe so as not to disturb his The pictures and writeups sometimes put us on the defensive in school and among our wife’s train of thought. Plump but dynamic, Mr. Gilbreth .” friends. The grin faded and Dad tossed the newspaper from him in disgust. "What unspeakable “How come you write with a wooden pencil in school, when I saw in the newsreel how claptrap,” he grunted. "Of all the words in the English language, the one I like least is your father and all you kids buried a whole casket of them in a grave?” ‘plump’. The whole article is just a figment of the imagination.” Sometimes, and this was worst of all, the teachers would read excerpts from writeups One newsreel photographer, who visited us in Nantucket, deliberately set out to make about the process charts in the bathroom, the language records, and the decisions of the us look ridiculous. It wasn’t a difficult job. If he was acting under instructions from his Family Council. employers, he should have been paid a bonus. We’d blush and squirm, and wish Dad had a nice job selling shoes somewhere, and In good faith, Dad moved the dining room table, the chairs and his pew out onto the that he had only one or two children, neither of whom was us. beach grass at the side of our cottage, where the newsreel man said the light would be The most dangerous reporters, from our standpoint, were the women who came to best. There, amid the sandflies, we ate dinner while the cameraman took pictures. interview Mother for human interest stories. Mother usually got Dad to sit in on such The newsreel, as shown in the movie houses, opened with a caption which said, “The interviews, because she liked to be able to prove to him and us that she didn’t say any of family of Frank B. Gilbreth, time-saver, eats dinner.” The rest of it was projected at the things they attributed to her, or at least not many of them. about ten times the normal speed. It gave the impression that we raced to the table, Dad derived considerable pleasure from reading these interviews aloud at the supper passed plates madly in all directions, wolfed our food, and ran away from the table, all table, with exaggerated gestures and facial expressions that were supposed to be in about forty-five seconds. In the background was the reason the photographer wanted Mother's. us outside—the family laundry with, of course, the diapers predominating. “There sat Mrs. Gilbreth, surrounded by her brood, reading aloud a fairy tale," Dad We saw the newsreel at the Dreamland Theater in Nantucket, and it got much louder would read. “The oldest, almost debutante Anne, wants to be a professional violinist. laughs than the comedy, which featured a fat actor named Lloyd Hamilton. Everyone in Ernestine intends to be a painter, Martha and Frank to follow in their father s footsteps." the Dreamland turned around and gaped at us, and we were humiliated and furious. We "Tell me about your honorary degrees.” I asked this remarkable mother of twelve. A didn’t even want to go to Coffin’s Drug Store for a soda, when Dad extended a half- flush of crimson crept modestly to her cheeks, and she made a depreciating moue." hearted invitation after the show. Here Dad would stop long enough to give his version of a depreciating moue, and hide “I hope it never comes to the Wellmont in Montclair,” we kept repeating. “How can his face, coyly behind an upraised elbow. He resumed reading: we ever go back to school?” “I am far more proud of my dozen husky, red-blooded American children than I am of “Well,” Dad said, “it was a mean trick, all right, and I’d like to get my hands on that my two dozen honorary degrees and my membership in the Czechoslovak Academy of photographer. But it could have been worse. Do you know what I kept thinking all the Science, Mrs. Gilbreth told me." way through it? “Mercy, Maud," Mother exploded. “I never said anything like that. You were there I kept thinking that when it was over they probably were going to show it again, during that interview, Frank. Where did that woman get all that? If my mother should backwards, so that it would look as if we were regurgitating our food back on our plates. see that article, I don't know what she'd think of me. That woman never asked me about I’ll swear, if they had done that I was going to wreck the place.” honorary degrees. And two dozen? No one ever had two dozen, unless it was poor Mr. “And I would have helped you,” said Mother. “Honestly!” FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN - CHAPTER 14 SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, Feb. 04th, 2020
4. “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. Notes: - blighter: kẻ phá hoại; trouble maker - barsteds [=bar + steads] các chủ quán nhậu - Remington people: công ty sản xuất máy đánh chữ [thời ấy] - regurgitate: trào ngược (thức ăn) - writeups: bản báo cáo, tường trình FRANK BUNKER GILBRETH, Jr. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN - CHAPTER 14 SCANNED BY THẨM TÂM VY, Feb. 04th, 2020