I thought of many an autumn I had known: Seemly autumns approaching deliberately, with amplitude. I thought of wild asters, Michaelmas daisies, mushrooms, leaves idling down the air, two or three at a time, warblers...

By lunchtime the valley was lightly coated, like a cake with confectioner’s sugar…there was white fur on the antlers of the iron deer and on the melancholy boughs of the Norway spruce.

The summer,’ Randy explained. ‘I’m going to appreciate it. I’m going to walk in the woods noticing everything, and ride my bike on all the roads I never explored. I’m going to fill a pillow...

Summer was over in twenty minutes that day. Finished. At four o’clock in the afternoon the roses were quiet on their stems, full-blown, fulfilled; the water in the pool was warm; the leaves on the...

All over the city lights were coming on in the purple-blue dusk. The street lights looked delicate and frail, as though they might suddenly float away from their lampposts like balloons. Long twirling ribbons of...

Never plan a picnic’ Father said. ‘Plan a dinner, yes, or a house, or a budget, or an appointment with the dentist, but never, never plan a picnic.

Self-pity is the hens’ besetting sin,” remarked Mr. Payton. “Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.

Already he knew that to overdo a thing is to destroy it.

He couldn’t stop smelling the air in great, deep, loud sniffs. It was so delicious. It smelled of water, and mud, and maple trees, and autumn.