In a meadow beside a round pond a tree
dripped apple blossoms, each so frail a thing that it fluttered out and
away, too light to anchor.
In careless similitude the bargain basement of the Titanic Store
resuscitated from its storerooms, and from spring openings long gone by,
dusty garlands of cotton May blossoms, festooning them between the great
white supporting pillars of the basement and intertwining them.
Over the white-goods counter and over Sunday, as it were, a papier-mache
pergola of green lattice-work and more cotton-back May blossoms had
sprung up as if the great god Wotan had built it with a word. Cascades
of summer linens, the apple green and the butter yellow, flowed from
counters and improvised tables. Sadie Barnet's own mid-aisle bin had
blossomed into a sacrificial sale of lawn remnants, and toward the close
of the day her stock lay low, depleted.
Max Meltzer leaned out of his bower, and how muted his voice, as if it
came from an inner throat that only spoke when the heart bade it.
"Little one, them remnants went like hot cakes, didn't they?"
"Hot cakes! Well, I guess. You'd have thought there was a mill-end sale
on postage stamps.
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