lking about how you used to
come out here every spring when you were kids, to collect specimens, and
it sounded like fun."

"So it was ... in those days. This old dirt road leads well in toward
the center. I used to spend a whole day hiking along here with my dog,
just rooting around and having a grand time. It's a pity we outgrow
the best things in life. Childhood scenes should be remembered, not
revisited. We can remember, but we can't recapture. A few years ago
I wanted some nature photographs so of course I came out here, sure
I'd get some beauties. I don't know. I started out in high spirits,
recognizing every rotted old stump along the way, but somehow it all
turned to ashes. I lost interest and turned back without taking a single
exposure--almost hating the place, in fact, as if it had let me down.
Strange that a place I loved as a kid should seem so empty and
uninviting now." He put on the brakes and looked around morosely.

"Don't you want to go any farther, Uncle Phil?"

"What for? You can see how overgrown the road is getting. I'll be lucky
if I can find a clearing to turn around. There's nothing of interest up
ahead, Timmy. The road dies out and then there's a couple of miles or so
of swamp and flies. It's getting dusk, too--"

"I'd like to get out for a minute."

"Oh. Well, O. K., but make it snappy."

He settled back listlessly as the boy climbed out, holding the door for
the dog to follow.

"Do you have to take that mutt ... never mind, go ahead."

* * * * *

The boy wandered off to the side of the road and Phil listened to the
rustle of bushes, wondering at his own irritation. He felt ill at ease,
anxious to be away. He started as Timmy came up beside him on the left
of the car.

"That was quick."

"Yeah." The boy was holding a spray of flowering shrub and his hand
passed casually over the flowers in a light caress. "Say, hasn't this
flower got a sweet smell, Uncle Phil? Here, smell it."

"It's a pretty flower, Timmy, but that stuff has no perfume." He
accepted the branch automatically, lifted it to his nostrils.

Time stopped.

He thought he felt a thump against the side of the car, but the
impression faded before it was fully born. In a remote corner of his
mind the ticking of his watch sounded as a cold, measured rhythm, a
metronome with delusions of syncopation. He sat motionless, his forearm
resting on the steering wheel, the spray of blossoms caressi