Read The Moon by Night for Free Online Page B

whispered.

    â€œI’m too excited.”
    â€œWe’re all excited, but Daddy wants to get an early start tomorrow, so try to relax.”
    I turned my mattress valve and let a little air hiss out. Then I stretched out in the sleeping bag sheet. Mother had made sort of inner bags out of old sheets for us. These had tapes on the bottom and could be tied to tapes at the foot of the sleeping bags, so the sheets wouldn’t wrinkle up too much when you tried to turn over. And we all had small foam-rubber-filled cloth pillows, each in a different pattern so we could tell them apart, that could be tossed in washing machines along the way, and of course didn’t take up as much room as regular pillows. There are lots of little things like that to a camping trip that I never thought of when we first started making plans.
    Suzy mumbled something in her sleep. From one of the tents or trailers somebody called out, “Harry!” The rain shshed gently through the trees and the sound was a lullaby. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
    The next morning we were up early. On school mornings Mother has to pry us out of our beds, but the moment we heard Mother and Daddy stirring we were all very wide awake and excited immediately. John built the fire and Mother made scrambled eggs and hashed brown potatoes, and brewed coffee in the open pot that came with Uncle Douglas’s cooking set. At home Mother uses an electric percolator; we have friends who make drip coffee and chemex coffee and instant coffee and espresso coffee and I’ve never given a hoot about coffee, I’ve always had milk or cocoa for breakfast. But this coffee! In an open pot you just bring the water to a boil, throw in the coffee (I suppose you
have to measure it), and an egg shell if you happen to have one handy, then take the pot off the fire and let it sit on the side of the fireplace till the grounds settle. Well! Nothing has ever smelled quite as wonderful as that open pot coffee at Caledonia State Park, and it even tasted good, with lots of milk and sugar.
    We learned that morning that it took us longer to break camp than to set it up. Daddy said we’d undoubtedly learn short cuts and be able to cut down on the time, but we’d have to get going earlier in the morning.
    As soon as we got in the car Mother got out her little notebook in which she was keeping lists of everything. Not for any real reason. Just for fun. We did want to know how much we spent each day, and we wanted to jot down every place that was interesting that we went through. The first day we spent $9.95 on tolls, gas, Cokes, and the camping permit. The second day it was $11.84 on tolls, gas, tickets to Monticello (Rob thought it was a musical instrument), gas, sodas, and firewood. At Peaks of Otter State Park in Virginia you had to buy the firewood, but it only cost fifty cents, and the campgrounds were much nicer than Caledonia, with special places marked out for the tents and for parking cars, really nice picnic tables, and well built stone fireplaces with good grills at each campsite. That night we had spaghetti and got to bed earlier than the first night, and were ready for bed, too. There were only a few other campers there, and none very close to us, so Mother got out her guitar and we sang, first loud songs and silly songs, then the kind of sad folk songs, and then she slipped in some hymns. Not that I’m really against hymns, but you know what I mean.
    One thing I do like about hymns, most of them we can sing
in parts. John and Daddy sing bass, which makes the bass louder than anything else, but you can’t stop them. Suzy and Rob sing the melody, and they both have sweet, clear voices. Rob’s is really terrific for such a little kid. He never flats or gets off tune or anything. Mother sings tenor, sometimes where it belongs and sometimes an octave high, so it’s sort of like a descant, and I struggle along with the alto. I’m the weak link