(a true 250-word story)
When I was ten, our family spent a lot of time in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Dad purchased a nice big, green canvas cabin tent for the entire family to sleep and shelter from unexpected storms in, providing a new level of security we had never experienced in previous camping adventures. We realized one morning that it was flimsy protection from wildlife, though, when we woke to the sound of one of our Coleman lanterns breaking outside. We all looked out the big cloth screen door of the tent to find we were surrounded by a small herd of bison casually grazing through our camp. Dad advised everyone to stay still and quiet, that they would soon graze on by. We did as we were told, watching and listening to them chomping at the grass until they were too far away to see out the tent door.
Easing out of the tent one-by-one we watched the small herd grazing quietly a little ways off to the south and east of our campsite. We could still hear them chomping.
A few months later we moved to our first big city (an inner suburb of Houston) and my middle brother was asked to tell a favorite vacation story to his class. He told about waking up in our tent surrounded by bison. Those poor city kids and even his teacher were so detached from all things wild in the world that none of them believed him.
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