We have
decided not to move indoors again this summer, but to lodge here in the
time between vacations and to annex the Infant.
Oh, Mrs. Evan, dear! there is one thing in which _The Man from
Everywhere_ reckoned without his host! Stopping the clocks when we went
in camp did not dislodge Time from the premises; rather did it open the
door to his entrance hours earlier than usual, when one of the chiefest
luxuries we promised ourselves was late sleeping.
Stretched on our wire-springed, downy cots (there is positively no
virtue in sleeping on hard beds, and Bart considers it an absolute
vice), there is a delicious period before sleep comes. Bats flit about
the rafters, and an occasional swallow twitters and shifts among the
beams as the particular nest it guarded grew high and difficult to mount
from the growth of the lusty brood within. The scuffle of little feet
over the rough floor brings indolent, half-indifferent guessing as to
which of the lesser four-foots they belonged. The whippoorwills down in
the river woods call until they drop off, one by one, and the timid
ditty of a singing mouse that lives under the floor by my cot is the
last message the sandman sends to close our eyes before sleep.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183