The

Budget (3

/D.F.

by Emily Jones

I remember, but then, I am not likely to forget, that it was a warm, late afternoon. I do not live far from the place where I work, and as I say it was a warm really pleasant sort of spring afternoon and so I walked. At the bakery the block before, I almost bought some elcairs that were sitting in the window. I decided against it though. I have always taken a great deal of pride in my ability to withstand whim. Impulse, I have always understood, is the guide of the uncivilized, of the hopelessly disorganized. My friends know this about me and speak about it often. Jean, they say. Jean leads such an organized life! She really does! It's perfectly marvelous!

Yes, that is what they say, and sometimes in front of me and it pleases me deeply that people recognize my sense of indestructible order.

It was the same thing when I hesitated that day a moment in front of the flowers. The silly little daffodils had a rather haggard and pathetic kind of charm sitting there in the green paper in the little buckets in front of the florist's shop. For a moment longer than I had taken to decide about the eclairs even, I actually considered purchasing them. But then I caught up with myself. I remember I laughed aloud and challenged spring. Spring has always been my enemy. The rot that permeates our culture about rebirth and all that it does rather get into the system despite one. But I have always overcome it. I overcame it that afternoon also.

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