Family

Growing Up Together: The Richards Brothers and the Humor of Family Life

By Andrew Richards

In the Richards household, coming home for supper eventually required a cast-iron bell.

Calling into the woods had its limitations. Andy and Dudley had creeks to investigate, trees to climb and discoveries that apparently could not wait. Homer’s answer was wonderfully practical: a bell in the backyard, with an instruction that was considerably harder to miss. When it rang, the boys were to come running. They did. [M0]

It is a small detail, but it introduces this family better than a list of personality traits could. There are boys absorbed in their own world, a father trying to get them home and a household finding its own way to work.

Gus’s welcome: Andy generally has the idea. Dudley is already on his way. Lewis wants to know why everybody thinks he’s too small to join in. Then there’s me, trying to look as though this was covered in training.

In Gus: The Guardian, growing up is observed by someone who loves Andy very much—and does not always understand why loving him involves quite so much running.

Three brothers, three different kinds of energy

Andy, Dudley and Lewis are not interchangeable names attached to childhood adventures. Part of the pleasure of the family chapters is watching their different temperaments meet.

Andy has a mind that moves toward the next possibility. A plan, an interesting object or an opportunity to play can pull his attention away from whatever an adult had intended him to do. Dudley brings his own determination. The guardians’ comparisons capture the distinction with affectionate exaggeration: Elias sees foxlike quickness in Andy; Gus compares Dudley’s stubbornness to a mule. Those are the guardians’ impressions, rather than a complete definition of either boy. [M0]

Lewis arrives later. Once he is part of the brothers’ adventures, being the youngest does not mean being content to watch. That matters to the humor: he has his own place in the household, not merely a smaller version of someone else’s.

The cast grows on the guardian side as well. Gus looks after Andy, Elias watches over Dudley and Justus is Lewis’s guardian. Their reactions differ, too. Gus can worry aloud while someone beside him remains inconveniently calm. Three boys do not produce one repeated joke; they produce shifting alliances, different expectations and several ways for a simple afternoon to become a story. [M0]

The dinner bell deserves its own place in the family history

In this earlier part of the story, it is Andy and Dudley who keep Homer calling toward the woods.

The boys can hear the world of their adventures perfectly well. They are simply less available to a parent calling them home. Homer does not deliver a lengthy theory of family communication. He installs something that makes a noise.

It is funny because the solution fits both the problem and the father. A household custom begins with an ordinary need: supper is ready, and somebody would like everybody to come inside. What might be a minor inconvenience to an adult is, to the boys, an interruption in a much larger enterprise. [M0]

Years later, a detail like that can carry the feeling of a whole childhood. The point is not that every family needs a bell. It is that families develop their own signals, routines and slightly ridiculous arrangements. Inside the household they make perfect sense. Outside it, they need explaining.

Lilly has a different plan for their attention

Where Homer finds a practical way to bring the boys home, Lilly tries giving their energy somewhere else to go. Piano lessons seem a promising possibility. She took lessons herself as a girl and hopes they might help the boys focus. [M0]

The piano is indoors. Unfortunately, the yard is still visible.

Andy sits at the keys with his attention wandering outside. When the teacher asks him to concentrate, he insists that he is concentrating. His eyes suggest that he and the teacher may have different subjects in mind.

Dudley’s difficulty is different. He is willing to supply music, but he has his own opinions about which notes ought to be played. When corrected, he prefers the song he is making up. [M0]

The humor does not require a villain. Lilly’s hope is understandable. The teacher is doing her job. Each boy is recognizably himself. Everyone has arrived at the same piano with a different idea of what the next half hour ought to accomplish.

Gus is allowed to enjoy them, too

It would be easy to reduce Gus to the fellow objecting from the sidelines. The book gives him more range than that.

He worries because Andy matters to him. In a conversation with Elias, his concern is not simply that the boy is making work for him; he does not want to fail someone he cares about. That is the feeling underneath many of the complaints. [M0]

But concern is not his only response. When Lewis enjoys a wagon ride, Gus is drawn into the laughter. He can be delighted by the very family whose energy leaves him protesting. He can also have a questionable idea of his own. He is not an impartial inspector arriving to assess everyone else’s behavior. He belongs in the commotion. [M0]

That combination gives the guardian’s view its warmth. The exasperation is funnier when we know he would not willingly trade these people for a quieter assignment.

Then Mädchen joins the household

Mädchen, the family’s Rottweiler, adds another watchful presence to this busy world. She has her own relationship with the boys and with little Lewis. She stays close, notices what is happening and sometimes appears to have reached a firmer decision about the situation than the humans have. [M0]

She does not make the brothers less themselves. She becomes part of the rhythm around them: affection, movement, concern and the daily question of where everybody has gone.

Her introduction deserves a story of its own. Here, what matters is that the family’s warmth includes her. She is a particular dog in a particular household, not a convenient symbol pasted onto a family anecdote.

The small things are part of the story

A bell. A glance through a window during a piano lesson. A younger brother who wants to join in. These are modest ingredients for a family history.

They work because the people remain distinct. Homer’s practicality is not Lilly’s hope for the piano lessons. Andy’s wandering attention is not Dudley’s musical confidence. Lewis brings another stage of growing up into the house. Mädchen notices things in her own way. And Gus manages to be worried, proud, amused and occasionally implicated.

There is affection here without a claim that family life was always tidy or easy. Often, the funniest moment is simply the distance between what somebody intended and what everybody else understood.

Gus has a final word: If you’d like to meet the person Andy kept so thoroughly occupied, I’m over here. Or read a sample and see whether you’d like to spend a little more time with us.

Thinking of sharing a family story aloud? Our guide to choosing a family read-aloud offers a simple way to preview the voice, choose a manageable passage, and make room for the memories a story brings up.