Tenting
Now afore I forget, I must tell you about the time when we all went camping – tenting that is! There were just the three of us, Mirandy, Hiram and me. ‘It was a nice July day- lazy an’ hot like. But I guess summers are sort of meant t’ be hot.
We thought that it would be quite nice an’ fitting to spend a night or two tenting out, so to speak. So we set out early like in the morning, all three of us, like I said in that old jalopy – the best, an’ only one that we cud afford. We had jest bought a new, used tent. We had jest laid out quite a deal o’ money for it too. We were quite proud of it.
We were headed for the North Country, where we hoped it would be a mite cooler. Late like in the afternoon, we spotted what looked like a like enough place, beside a marshy little lake. We thot, here there’s lots of water for bathing in as well as to use for cooking. Mirandy thot that this place should do the trick. So we soon got this here tent pitched and staked down all around. Hiram scouted around and found some firewood. He is always good at making fires, so he soon had a nice little camp fire going. Mirandy soon had a pot of tea and every thing was fine.
It all seemed nice an’ cool here by this little lake. The afternoon changed to even’ and soon night was settling in with a hush. The birds and other evening critters ceased their chatter an’ were settlin’ down for the night. We were soon happy to do the same.
We had no idea what this night under canvas had in store for us. As the evenin’ gathered close about us, the air grew damp with the many smells of nature. We closed and securely tied the tent flaps and turned in for a good night’s rest.
We had just nicely settled down when we heard this buzzing sound, like we had never heard before. Mirandy suggested that it mite jest be the wind or something, not to worry. We were all tired and soon fell asleep. Around midnight we were awakened to feel a cool breeze in our faces. This felt real good, so we went back to sleep. In the morning’ we woke with the sun a shining full in our faces. When I was finally fully awake, we realized to our amazement and horror that our tent was gone, all gone. It had disappeared in the night, including the tent pegs. “Well”, I thot, “this is a goll-darn funny thing”. Then jest a short distance away, Hiram spotted what looked like a tent lyin’ on the ground with itself all covered with some black stuff. Sure enough, there was our perfectly good, second-hand tent all covered with huge, perfectly dead mosquitoes. Well it didn’t take Mirandy long to figure out what had happened. When them danged insects couldn’t get at us coming in thru the tent door like they aughter, on account of it being’ closed, they tried the indirect approach by trying to bore thru the tent walls and roof. Here is wear they got stuck.
In their excitement they all flew away taking our tent with them. Well sir, all this excitement and disappointment were too much for them poor critters. They all up an’ died right then an’ there, stuck to our perfectly good second-hand tent.
Well, I guess there is a miracle here somewhere, for which we are thankful. We also gave thanks to our new, second-hand tent for savin’ our lives. Old Mother Nature really does have her own ways o’ dealin’ with our livelihood!
Yours for the best in Nature:
Timothy Haystubble (Grass Roots Philosopher)