"Paid by the Animal" Game

     One week our family drove to Yellowstone Park. My dad drove, my mother read the map and handed us sandwiches and drinks. My brother Jim sat on one side of the back seat and I sat on the other side.  Jim liked to tease me, especially in ways that my parents couldn't see.  I would squeal and object, and when my parents had heard enough, my dad would pick the hairbrush that always seemed to be in the front seat, reach over the seat and try to make us stop making noise (me, and not my fault). They never told Jim to stop teasing, only told me to stop making noise.  Well, Jim was bored and he was about 14 or 15 years old. I was somewhere around nine.   The second day was very cloudy and a little rainy. We were driving some more, and Jim was getting ready to start teasing. My mother sensed this and made up a new game. She said, " Look out the window for wild animals. I will give you five cents for one kind, 10 cents for another kind, and 25 cents for even another.  We had not seen one single wild animal up to that point. Even on earlier trips to The Park, we hadn't seen more than a few bears, an elk or two, and perhaps a bison. I think she was planning on that and could afford that much change.  Soon, we came around a bend in the road and spied a whole herd of elk. We couldn't even count them all. There must have been a hundred of them. It wasn't too long before we drove by a herd of bison. Boy, Jim and I were really excited by now!  My parents weren't so excited for some reason.  We saw five or six bear, and a few eagles.  We never did collect our earnings, but the experience created a great memory.  I have never again seen the same population of wild animals in a single day in The Park