Page 35 (1/2)

First there had been a motion, as of veils, in the sky The clouds had enveloped each other softly A faint breeze had lifted Vinia’s hair, sighing and evaporating the an to run, the raindrops fell down all about without touching thean to touch the vast trees into the deepest,up in wetand painted fresh ater

“This way!” cried Jim

And they reached a hollow tree so vast that they could squeeze in and be warether, ar the

“Hey!” He gave her brow a lick “Drinking water!”

“Jim!”

They listened to the rain, the soft envelop water, the whispers in deep grass, evoking odors of old ood and leaves that had lain a hundred years,and sweet

Then they heard another sound Above and inside the holloar, like so pies, contentedly, dipping in sweet sugars and snowing in baking powders, so a vast supply of food, happy at it, hu between lips over it

“Bees, Jim, up there! Bees!”

“Sh!”

Up the channel of moist warm hollow they saw little yellow flickers Now the last bees, wettened, were hurrying home from whatever pasture orby Vinia and Ji up the warm flue of summer into hollow dark

“They won’t bother us Just stand still”

Jihtened hers She could srapes still on it And the harder the rain dru, at last quietly letting their laughter drain away into the sound of the bees hoht that she and Jireatthem into this tree forever, enchanted, in amber, to be seen by anyone in the next thousand years who strolled by, while the weather of all ages rained and thundered and turned green outside the tree

It was so warm, so safe, so protected here, the world did not exist, there was raining silence, in the sunless, forested day

“Vinia,” whispered Jim, after awhile “May I now?”

His face was very large, near her, larger than any face she had ever seen