Mr. Hobbs' Vacation

For months ahead Mr. Hobbs had daydreamed of the pleasures that would be his and the many things he would do.  But, somehow, when the time arrived, affairs did not turn out as he anticipated.  His grandchildren were either sleeping or eating.  His daughters were involved in their own pursuits.  His sons-in-law baffled him.  The business of living kept getting in his way---the problem of hot water, the demands of hospitality, garbage disposal.  A man who worshiped order, Mr. Hobbs found himself existing in the midst of what seemed to him unbelievable chaos.

What it adds up to is a story even funnier than Father of the Bride:  made all the more poignant by an occasional twinge of heartache.  Somewhere, back in the early days when as a soldier in World War I, Mr. Streeter wrote Dere Mable, he mad the discovery that most people whether of high or low degree, are ordinary human beings whose day-to-day hopes and aspirations are basically akin, and who are constantly being knocked about by reality in much the same sort of way.  That may be why, for readers of his books, each pang of recognition explodes in laughter---and each burst of laughter leaves a faint shock wave, as of old wounds complaining.  However it works, you will read Mr. Hobbs' Vacation in a state of blissful good humor which will be shared by all of those to whom you insists on reading it aloud.