nges. The motor
showed that. I should not say that the tempo of life had been quickened
so much as that its radius had been widened, or that the focus was
different; the old spell was the same. To reconcile the past and the
present, I have thought of a beautiful compromise. Why not a motor van?
The family jeered at me when I first suggested that we spend J----'s
next vacation meandering up the coast in one. Of course, the boys adored
the idea at first, but sober second thoughts for mother made them pause.

Billie: "But, Muvs, you'd hate it, you couldn't have a box spring!"

Joedy: "And you don't like to wash dishes."

Quite true. I had thought of all that myself. I don't like to wash
dishes, but we use far more than we really need to use, and anyway I had
rather decided that I wouldn't wash them. As to the bed-spring, I could
have an air mattress, for while it's a little like sleeping on a captive
balloon, it doesn't irritate your bones like a camp cot.

The family distrust of me, as a vagabond, dates from a camping trip last
August to celebrate Billie's twelfth birthday. It lasted only one night,
so "trip" is a large word to apply to it, but I will say that for one
night it had all the time there could be squeezed into it. We selected a
site on the beach almost within hallooing distance of the Smiling
Hill-Top, borrowed a tent and made camp. I loved the fire and frying the
bacon and the beat of the waves, but I did not like the smell of the
tent. It was stuffy. I had been generously given that shelter for my
own, while the male members of the party slept by a log (not like one,
J---- confessed to me) under a tarpaulin--I mean "tarp"--with stars
above them except when obscured by fog. My cot was short and low and I
am not, so that I spent the night tucking in the blankets. The puppies
enjoyed it all thoroughly. Though they must have been surprised by the
sudden democratic intimacy of the situation, they are opportunists and
curled themselves in, on, and about my softer portions, so that I had to
push them out every time I wanted to turn over, which was frequently. I
urged them to join the rest of the party under the "tarp," but they were
firm, as they weren't minding the hardness of the cot, and they don't
care especially about ventilation. I greeted the dawn with heartfelt
thanksgiving, and yet I'm as keen about my vacation idea as ever. I have
simply learned what to do and what not to do, and it won't matter to me