dandelion wine

crossing the lawn that morning, douglas spaulding broke a spider web with his face. a single invisible line on the air touched heis brow and snapped without a sound.

so, with the subtlest of incidents, he knew that this day was going to be different. it would be different also, because, as his father explained, driving douglas and his ten-year-old brother tom out of town toward the country, nothing but the world blowing in one nostril and out the other. and some days, he went on, were days of hearing every trump and trill of the universe. some days were good for all the senses at once. this day, now, he nodded, smelled as if a great and nameless orchard had grown up overnight beyond the hills to fill the entire visible land with its warm freshness. the air felt like rain, but there were no clouds. momentarily, a stranger might laugh off in the woods, but there was silence...