Childhood I
The ducks waddle in the mud and sail in circles round the pond, or preen their feathers on the bank.
But in Summer the pond is dry, and its bed is glossy and baked by the sun, of a beautiful soft colour like the skins of the moles they catch and crucify on the stable doors.
On the green the fowls pick grains, or chatter and fight. Their yellows, whites and browns, the metallic lustre of their darker feathers, and the crimson splash of their combs make an everchanging pattern on the grass.
They drink with spasmodic upreaching necks by the side of the well.
Under the stones by the well live green lizards curious to our eyes.
And the path from the well leads to a garden door set in the high wall whereon grow plums and apricots. The door is deep and narrow and opens on to paths bordered with box-hedges; one path leads through the aromatic currant bushes, beneath the plum-trees, to the lawn where grows the wonder of our day-dreams, the monkey's-puzzle tree. On the other side of the
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