“Now,” said Janie, propping up her pillows, “tell me how you make those little pin curls you have all across the top of your head.”
About ten o’clock Mom opened the door a crack and looked them over. “I know you’re both sound asleep,” she said. “And I know you wouldn’t be interested, but just in case you should be awake, there’s a bottle of cold root beer in the refrigerator.” They tumbled out of bed, giggling and paraded to the kitchen.
Grandma and Aunt Claire said “good night” and started back to the little cottage. Mom turned off the porch lights. They sat in darkness watching the shadows and the bright moonlight on the lawn and on the lake. There was no sound but the whispering of the poplar leaves and the gentle slapping of the waves against the shore. Janie leaned back in the wicker rocking chair and sipped her root beer. Strains of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” seemed to float down through the silver night. She wiggled her toes in ecstasy. “It seems a shame to waste a night like this sleeping,” she said. “I’d like to walk forever in the dew and the moonlight.”
Katy broke the spell. She had a deep, sturdy voice, strangely out of place in her slim little body and pixie face. “You’d probably step on a frog,” she said, and they all laughed.
“Rinse out your glasses and run to bed like good children,” said Mom. “There’s going to be a lot of planning to do in the morning. Do you realize that the Fourth of July is only a week off?”
“Ooooooooh!” Janie squealed, giving her mother a big hug. “I like the Fourth of July almost as much as Christmas.” Good nights were whispered once more and in a little while everyone was fast asleep.
James woke the family by falling out of bed. He gave out a roar of indignation and began to beat Billy, who by this time was only half awake. “You pushed me!” he cried. “You kicked me out of bed.” Billy blinked and rolled to the other side of the bed to avoid a pillow in the face. Suddenly James stopped dead. He looked astonished and then he burst out laughing. He laughed so that he bent over double and held his sides.
“You didn’t kick me out of bed,” he gasped. “I dreamed I was riding a horse and the horse kicked me, and I guess I just woke up now.”
Mom called from the foot of the stairs. “If you boys are going to have a roughhouse, I wish you’d have it out on the lawn.”
“I was only dreaming,” James called down. Mrs. Murray sighed. “If that was only a dream,” she said, “may heaven preserve us when you get a nightmare.”