February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer.

In the country of the story the writer is king.

I assume then, that you have no real faith in the fondness any of the rest of us may feel for you?''None,' said Mrs. Halloran.

Today my winged horse is coming and I am carrying you off to the moon and on the moon we will eat rose petals.

On the moon we have everything. Lettuce, and pumpkin pie and Amanita phalloides. We have cat-furred plants and horses dancing with their wings. All the locks are solid and tight, and there are no ghosts.

I remember that I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green in the branches against the sky and wishing, as I always did, that I could walk home across the sky instead of through the village.

We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and then we eat it.