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He would hear the the su down the long throat of the underground tunnel, standing by the sole for hihter inside, like corking water into a jug And he would run still further away frorew up like bits of white cheese and moonstone in the shadows of the summer day In this land of ravine silence, his feet pattered with the sound of rain along the soft paths of grass, and the further he ran, the more numerous the names on the stones became, Belton, Sears, Roller, Smith, Brown, Davis, Braden, Jones Lackel, Nixon, Merton, Beddoes, Spaulding A land of names and silences And far far away hishis name:

“Charles, Charles, Charles, Charlie, Charles!”

He stopped when he reached his particular to, slipped wide the door with the broken lock and hurried in It was a to cake, fancifully ornate, i the directions of the co trees and fluttering water shelves that lowered the the path now, like a string of white butterflies, flew the girl cousins, hair yellow on the air, eyes flashing

“Charles, Charles, Charles, Charlie!”

And after theame than the children, ca on the still air, panic in to stumble and whirl about “Charles!”

SIXTY SUMMERS burned the grass and sixty autumns plucked the trees to emptiness, and sixty winters froze the creek waters and cracked the toppling stones, while winds raced cold about, and sixty springs opened up new green meadows of color where butterflies were thick as flowers, and flowers as numerous as butterflies

And then, one autu tins of thunderous and invisible sound through the flying trees, an old wo here or there, alone, as delicate as chaff, as yellow as the last leaf

She paused before the to rememberedand peered in Dust was thickened on the outside, and this she removed with her dainty flowered handkerchief, slowly and trely

And there was the sh sill, in the silent darkness, looking at her, looking out at silence and autumn hardness and the bare earth, and thi

s old wo There was his head, like a dried fruit, and the fragile, tiers

“Charles,” she said to the , standing back “Charlie I thought of you today For the first tiot all about you After that first year I went to Philadelphia and forgot all about it I thought it was only a dreaone and I live alone, and I’ in o, and I looked at the sky thisand suddenly I remembered It was like a dream, I couldn’t believe it, so I had to come to be sure And now I see it’s true, here you are And I don’t knohat to say”

The slass

“I’m sorry, Charlie, do you hear me, I’m sorry It’s too late, but I’m sorry But listen, Charles, listen My life is over and it’s just as if it never was When you’re seventy it’s like an instant And now I’m here to where you were and have always been, and you shouldn’t be jealous and hateto me”

SUMMER’S END

SUMMER WAS COMING to its own end, winding up the spool, shaking out the last bright sand froood wind passed It let the rain wash the color froot the flowers so they turned away and died There was a great stir, as of a fa all about in children’s bands, ireat whining and roaring of wind In every yard, soon, su the pyres and the s the birds how the windsouth lay

“The sooner we freeze the sooner we thaw,” said Grandfather “Look at the leaves The air smells like an old book store on days like this”

The fruits were quartered and liquored and bottled and shelved The house was painted and shingled and puttied and put right The trees were free of their leaves and enjoying the freedoloves An avalanche of coal tinned and chuted in a dark pour through the cellar , rising to a volcano peak in the wooden bin Winter co down like the white lace of a wo foot by foot over the porches and towers and roofs of town until all was under its tide The skies swept clean of birds, erased, it al so high that they were not felt, but occurred only arayand coldness all about in twists and turns All pointing toward thatits breath, and silence, in lace, falling froreat s predicted and foretold by this one day in September