Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/201

 "Good morning, Mrs. Green. Looks like summer's really over, don't it?"

The first snow fell on the dry ground and dead leaves with a hissing sound, a tiny rattling. The summer that had been so happy, after all, was gone. She had dreaded it, and it had been the most beautiful one she had ever known. She thought of times with Joe—always with Joe. The day he took her to Small's to buy a hat, and had been so funny that Miss Minnie had had a stitch in her side from laughing. The hot day when everything went wrong, and she tipped over the blackberry jam and scalded her hand, and then Joe came home and took her to Tetwillow's Pond, with a picnic supper. Bells sounded faintly from the distant church; lily pads lay flat and cool on water stained pink by sunset; shadowy fish swam near the shore, silent as thoughts. The day they had been out driving in the Ford, and she had cried: "Joe! What is all that yellow?" and they had seen the multitudes of butterflies, their wings folded, blown sideways by the wind as they clung to the edges of the ruts in the road, then rising in a quivering cloud of clear color that brought tears of pure happiness to her eyes.

With a start she shut the door. Crazy! Standing there in the snow! Her smile faded; she looked at the letter in her hand, wrinkling up her nose. How could Joe recover if that girl kept on writing all the time? What on earth did they find to write so much about? "Venezia." What an affected postmark! Why not