Cheaper by the Dozen

better come into the house, all of you. It's bedtime, and even a skunk is entitled to some peace and quiet. You've scared him enough for one night. I'll bet his eyes are about to pop out of his head with what he's seen tonight."
    Mother disappeared inside the window.
    "I'll bet," Ernestine said for the benefit of Motorcycle Mac, "that his eyes were about to pop out of his head with what he thought he was going to see. Now slink down out of that cherry tree, you rat you."
    "If Dad were here," Bill said, "he'd probably blind him, like they did back in Lady Godiva's day."
    "That's just what Dad would do," Anne agreed. "I wish we had thought of that ourselves."
    "Should I go get a hatpin?" Frank asked hopefully.
    "Too late now," Anne said. "It's past your bedtime. But maybe he'll come back again some other night."

Chapter 19
The Party Who Called You...

    None of us children knew it, but Dad had had a bad heart for years, and now Dr. Burton told him he was going to die.
    We noticed that Dad had grown thinner. For the first time in twenty-five years he weighed less than two hundred pounds. He joked about how strange it was to be able to see his feet again. His hands had begun to tremble a little and his face was gray. Sometimes, when he was playing baseball with the older boys or rolling on the floor with Bob and Jane, he'd stop suddenly and say he guessed he had had enough for today. There was a trace of a stagger as he walked away.
    He was fifty-five years old, and we supposed his symptoms were those of approaching old age. Certainly it never occurred to any of us that Dad had any intention of dying until he was good and ready to die.
    He had known about the bad heart even before Bob and Jane were born. He and Mother had discussed it, and the possibility that she would be left a widow with all the children.
    "But I don't think those doctors know what they're talking about," Dad said.
    Mother knew the answer Dad wanted.
    "I don't see how twelve children would be much more trouble than ten," she told him, "and personally I like to finish what I start. I don't know about you."
    The bad heart was one of the principal reasons for Dad's home instruction programs. It was also why he had organized the house on an efficiency basis, so that it would operate smoothly without supervision; so that the older children would be responsible for the younger ones. He knew a loadwas going to be thrown on Mother, and he wanted to lessen it as much as he could.
    "Maybe tomorrow, maybe in six months," Dr. Burton told Dad now. "A year at the outside if you stop work and stay in bed."
    "Don't think you can scare me," Dad said. "You doctors have been telling me for three years not to subscribe to any new magazines. Well, I don't believe a word of it. For one thing, I'm in my prime. And for another, I'm too busy."
    "Still the Old Pioneer," Dr. Burton grinned.
    "Don't think you can scare me," Dad repeated. "I'll be in the amen corner when they're laying you away. I'll see you in church, even if you don't see me."
    Dad went home and wrote a letter to a friend, Miss Myrtell Canavan, the Boston brain specialist.
    "Dear Mortuary Myrt: If and when I die, I'd like my brain to go to Harvard, where they are doing those brain experiments you told me about. I'd like you to handle the details. My hat size is seven and three-eighths, in case you want to get a jar ready. Don't think this letter means I'm getting ready to go any time soon, because I'm not. I'll leave a copy of this where Lillie will see it when the time comes, and she'll get in touch with you. The next time I see you, I don't want you casting any appraising glances at my cranium."
    With the letter mailed, Dad shrugged thoughts of death out of his mind. The World Power Conference and the International Management Conference were going to meet in eight months in England and Czechoslovakia, respectively. Dad accepted invitations to speak at both.
    The post-war industrial expansion had resulted in more and more emphasis being placed on motion study. For the first time, both Dad and Mother had more clients than they could handle. Dad went from factory to factory, installing his time-saving systems, reducing worker fatigue, so as to speed up production.
    He died on June 14, 1924, three days before he was to sail for Europe for the two conferences.
    Dad had walked from our house down to the Lackawanna Station, a distance of about a mile, where he intended to catch a commuters' train for New York. He