The Road To Miss Weatherbys

When I was young, eight years at most, I pedalled to Miss Weatherby's house... down the street, past salty old codgers cheating at checkers, past Dad's bakery, around the bend to duck ponds with silly-faced Buddha frogs showing toothless grins, past the poor shack-lodgers, speeding by the boogie man's house on the hill, down a plank of brown road to the stand displaying Ann's handbags, across from the palette where buttercups wag in topaz fields swallowing golden pepper rays, to the cow path ending at Miss Weatherby's picket fence. She stands with apple cheeks and a gray bonnet, plucking roses from vines, placing them in plaid apron pockets, and tossing toasted crumbs to red hens. She gives me tan eggs and I pay her with blueberry muffins and conversation...then back up the road again.