IN THE GARDEN It was quiet, unnaturally so, in the garden. The sunlight, although intense, had a thin transient quality as if it were only delaying there because the child was savoring its presence with such delight. A cloudbank building darkly in the east and grasshoppers rattling uneasily in the margins of adjoining fields emphasized the precarious balance of the day. The little one, too, was unusually quiet. He squatted, oriental fashion, on the walk and surveyed his world. The rumpled little garden settled doggedly between ragged fences, defying the encroaching weedy fields with resolution but not too hopefully. It was a good place for a boy to leave babyhood behind and venture into growing up, to stretch muscles and test new perceptions. Each new awareness was a step forward from the baby chrysallis. The texture of the walk made funny squiggles on the paper as he traced with a stub of a pencil around his chubby fingers. Then, short hand held out before his urchin face, he squinted seriously from hand to paper attempting to capture the out-line again without 'copying'. Legs tiring, he abandoned the wriggly line and plopped onto his 24 rear, waving ten muddy toes in joyful abandon. The day was so very clean compared to the child. The tender young poplar leaves glistened like newly-minted green coins and rustled with a crisp energy even in such a tiny breeze. The poplar bark was rough and dusty dusty but in a way that belonged and needn't be washed off before supper as the child's invariably was. The sun glinted through leaves and on grass and he, with his new-found discernment, saw that even the dust in the air was polished by the sun till it shone clean. 'Clean dust, that's funny.' Another funny thing, the yellow butterfly could sail right through the little pieces of dust and never get dirty. It pleased him to think that the butterfly was one of the sunlit patches on the lawn that had just gotten up and flown away. Someday he would draw the butterfly when it wasn't a just-right day. He could tell as soon as he got up that this was a just-right day. On those days, without actually thinking about it, he just let himself absorb the day, become a part of it. Granny always said he was a child of nature, whatever that was, the way he could joy in the out-of-doors. He was so still that the butter- 25