e are going camping tomorrow. Please come to the school in the evening with blankets and pajamas," said the note from the headmaster that Totto-chan took home and showed to Mother. Summer vacation began the following day.

"What does camping mean?" asked Totto-chan.

Mother was wondering, too, but she replied, "Doesn't it mean you're probably going to put up tents somewhere outdoors and sleep in them? Sleeping in a tent you can see the moon and the stars. I wonder where they'll set up the tents. There's no mention of fares so it's probably somewhere near the school."

That night, after Totto-chan had gone to bed, she couldn't get to sleep for ages. The idea of going camping sounded rather scary--a tremendous adventure-and her heart beat very fast.

The following morning she started packing as soon as she woke up. But that evening, as her blanket was placed on top of the knapsack that held her pajamas and she said goodbye and set off, she felt very small and frightened.

When the children were gathered at the school, the headmaster said, "Now then, all of you, come to the Assembly Hall." When they got there he went up onto the small stage carrying something stiff and starchy. It was a green tent.

"I'm going to show you how to pitch a tent," he said, spreading it out. "Please watch carefully.”

All alone, puffing and blowing, he pulled ropes this way and set up poles that way, and before you could say "Jack Robinson," there stood a beautiful tent!

"Come on, then," he said. "Now you're going to set up tents all over the Assembly Hall and start camping."

Mother imagined, as anyone would have, that they would put up the tents outdoors, but the head-master had other ideas. In the Assembly Hall the children would be all right even if it rained in the night or got a bit cold.

With delighted shouts of “We're camping, we're camping!” the children divided into groups, and, with the help of the teachers, they finally managed to set up the required number of tents. One tent could sleep about three children. Totto-chan quickly got into her pajamas, and soon children were happily crawling in and out of this tent and that one. There was much visiting to and fro.

When everyone was in pajamas, the headmaster sat down in the middle where they could all see him and talked to them about his travels abroad.

Some of the children lay in their tents with just their heads showing, while others sat up properly, and some lay with their heads on older children's laps, all listening to his tales of foreign countries they had never seen and sometimes never even heard of. The headmaster's stories were fascinating, and at times they felt as if the children described in lands across the sea were friends.

And so it happened that this simple event--sleeping in tents in the Assembly Hall--became for the children a happy and valuable experience they would never forget. The headmaster certainly knew how to make children happy.

When the headmaster finished speaking and the light in the Assembly Hall had been turned out, all the children went into their own tents. Laughter could be heard from some; whispers from others; while from a tent at the far end came the sound of a scuffle. Gradually silence fell.

It was camping without any moon or stars, but the children enjoyed it thoroughly. To them that little Assembly Hall seemed like a real camping ground, and memory wrapped that night in moonbeams and starlight forever.