The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1906-07-15

AS 1t was the middle of June, John
Hopin's vacation plans had reached the
period of the sixth reduction Being a
cheerful young man, with sanguine
wife, it was Hopin's custom to begin
the first of each year to arrange for the
familys summer diversion and the
rough preliminary cast of the program
made in January always included the
British Isles. the South of France, with
slice of Germany and little random
cruising in the Mediterranean in the
itinerary. 1t had been this way for
ten years now, and the family had not
yet been abroad. But John Hop1n
knew the funnel marks of every trans
atlantic ship, and the first and second
cabin rates of every line. Once a year
he told Mrs. Hopin that if he was sin
gle he would go steerage or work his
passage on cattle-ship, whereupon
she always gently reminded him that
he had been single twenty-five years
before he was married. But she, too,
shared the enthusiasm for the trip
abroad, and was sure, every January
that it was coming in the following
June. She knew, from personal inspec-
tion tours to the various piers, all the
boats that had playrooms for the chill
dren, for there was a young Hopin,
Polly, aged nine, to be considered in
the outing plans.
The year that John had the muscu-
lar-development fad he picked out a
ship with a gymnasium and running
track on the fourteenth deck, and he
,iy, rhoIr
ing, surrounded by second hand
guide-books and Polly's primary-school
geography, studying the plan of that
vessel and wondering whether the ele-
vators or the companionways would
be safer in case of fire. OF course
they always visited each new ship
when the public was invited to inspect
it at the end of the maiden east-bound
voyage, and on these occasions the
Hopins made tentative selections of
the suites no mere stateroom would
do) that they would occupy in the fol-
lowing season.
The first-of-the-year plans were al
ways based on the sum obtained by
the simple arithmetical process of null
tipIying the number of weeks between
January and June by the average
number of dollars that John expected
to earn each week. and subtracting
from that product the product of the
number of weeks times the minimum
sum per week on which Mrs. Hopin
figured they might live if they were
willing to sacrifice little for the sake
of the educational broadening that a
trip abroad would surely give them. |
This always worked out admirably, /
and the Hopins went to Europe on pa
per every year. Once. when they had !
a balance of twenty-seven dollars IN /
the bank, after buying all the neces- !
sary Christmas presents, they went so
far as to invite poor but worthy ,
cousin to go abroad with them In the I
following Summer But in March they
had to rescind the invitation because
of unforeseen changes in Johns busi-
ness affairs that would keep him very
busy AS a rule, however, the first
modification of the plans would have to
come in February. The calendar did
its part with the multiplicand OF
weeks. but the income mult1pller al
ways managed to dwindle, somehow,
from the estimates, and then the Ho-
pins would serenely decide that Amer
leans should see their own country
first anyway and decide to go TO
Southern California. March had way
of suggesting Washington or Niagara
Falls. and when things began to get
green in April the delights OF a trip
up the Hudson appealed to the Hoplns
very strongly, for they both loved the
beautiful in nature, so they told each
other every spring, and then one or the
other would mention the fact that some
eminent foreigner, visiting this coun-
try. had said that the Hudson was
more beautiful than the Rhine, ana
that Europe had nothing like the
Palisades.
Nothing ever discouraged Mr.. or
Mrs. John Hopin, not even the recoi-
lection of that summer that had caught
them with only a few car fares IN the
family purse. That was the vacation
they had spent showing Polly the