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Not entirely devoted to tempests in the domestic teapot, Life with Father is most readable in its accounts of the rare moments when Father's self-confidence was shaken by his wife's distress, or when small bewilderments overwhelmed him. Father Day worried over money, fretted at Mrs. Day's inability to keep her household accounts straight, tried to force his boys to a discipline that would have floored most adults, rarely relaxed, regarded Clarence "like a humorous potter, pausing to consider—for the moment— an odd bit of clay.'' Writing with affectionate good nature, Son Day neverthe-less makes it clear that Father was a trial. In college Clarence sowed his wild oats with a sense of Father's disapproval accompanying him on his revels, and when he got into debt his knowledge of what Father would say clung to him like a wet rag. Comparing his household with that of friends, he writes without humor but with strained family pride: "Our home life was stormy but spirited. It always had tang. When Father was unhappy, he said so. He poured out his grief with such vigor that it soon cleared the air."
Readers may not be amused by accounts of essentially painful situations written as if they were good jokes, but they are likely to remember Father, like a quaint museum piece, dusted off and displayed as the last of the oldfashioned, strongwilled, unself-conscious individualists of pre-War days.