I had hardly finished writing the name in which he made the reservations after the numbers of the three cabins on that day's list, when the telephone rang again. This time it was a clerk from a Banning hotel, who said that the hotel was full already. Could we accommodate three ladies who wanted separate beds? We could, and I took the reservation. Then I surveyed the list happily. A few of our customers were staying over from the day before, and with all these reservations, we had only four vacancies left. At that rate we'd be full tonight--and early enough so that we could have one of our rare evenings away from the place. I started joyously outside to tell Grant, who was cleaning cabins. Just as I shut the door, though, the telephone rang. It was the owner of the Crawley Motel, on the west edge of Banning, calling for "some clients he couldn't take care of"; did we have a cabin that would accommodate five? No, but we could give them two separate cabins. That would be fine; they'd be over within half an hour. That left two vacancies, and it wasn't even noon yet! There must be a rodeo or celebration around, or the season for hunting some kind of animal which lived around here must have just opened; or else it was a holiday that had escaped my notice. According to the calendar, though, neither that day nor the next was a holiday; I couldn't quite figure out the rush for cabins. I wasn't much surprised, though, when the telephone rang twice more in the next hour. I took the two reservations and went out to uncover the "no" of our sign. "No Vacancy," our sign proclaimed; and the owner of the Blue Bonnet Motel directly across the highway hollered across wonderingly, "We haven't got a one! How'd ja do it?" "Oh, you just have to know how," I laughed. Then I went inside, picked Donna up out of her playpen, and hurried out to help Grant finish cleaning the cabins. All afternoon occasional cars slowed down by our motel, until their drivers noticed the "no vacancy" sign hanging there grandly. Then they picked up speed and drove on down the highway, turning into the driveway of one of the other motels. By late afternoon I was beginning to get uneasy. Not one of the people for whom the cabins had been reserved had shown up. It was conceivable that one, or even two, might be late or might disappoint us altogether; but for all of them to do it--! I didn't dare, though, to cover the "no" again and start renting cabins. I'd be in a terrible spot then if-- Suddenly a brown roadster swung out of the lane of cars and drove up to the office. At last! I thought, they had started coming. If the rest of them would only hurry, maybe Grant and I and the children could still go out--at least for a little drive. But the women in the car didn't have a reservation. They didn't even want a cabin. All they wanted to know was, did we have a man named Smith staying here? "We don't have hardly anybody staying here," I told them savagely, if not very grammatically.