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HENRY WHEELER SHAW 1818-1885
"Wouldn't it be better," I objected, "to have me pull a sword out of a
stone? If you really want to sell the product? The whole plan is silly!"
We were seated at a picnic table in the east orchard, Mannie Davis, Captain
John Sterling, Uncle Jock, Jubal Harshaw, and I-and a Professor Rufo, a
bald-headed old coot introduced to me as an aide to Her Wisdom and (impossible!)
her grandson. (But having seen with my own bloodshot eyes some of the results of
Dr. Ishtar's witchcraft, I was no longer using the word "impossible" as freely
as I did a week ago.)
Pixel was with us, too, but he had long since finished his lunch and was
down in the grass, trying to catch a butterfly. They were evenly matched but the
butterfly was ahead on points.
The bright and cloudless sky promised a temperature of thirty-eight or
forty by midaftemoon; my aunts had elected to eat lunch in their air-conditioned
kitchen. But there was a breeze and it was cool enough under the trees-a lovely
day, just right for a picnic; it reminded me of our conference with Father
Hendrik Schultz in the orchard of Old MacDonald's Farm just a week ago (and
eleven years forward).
Except that Hazel was not with me.
That groused me but I tried not to show it. When the Circle opened for
lunch. Aunt Til had a message waiting for me. "Hazel left here with Lafe just a
few minutes ago," she told me
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