A

Crossroads

by

K. O. Neal

She was rushing down the lane, between checking the beds in the end cabins and checking to see if the Baked Alaska was going to fall, when he stepped weavily from under the sycamores cocktail in hand.

"Mrs. Smith, tell me, what are these things? No, no, no. I mustn't ask. We'll all be disenchanted. We've each decided to be buried here in one."

"What things?"

"These! These charmingly rustic, elegant little weird burial plots."

The laughter broke from her wildly. It kept on and on, and she enjoyed it, on and on.

The silly things did look like that! But who would have thought it? It was exactly like one of those crazy-yet-not-so-crazy remarks that Doc Alice had been always. Then, in a flash, in the midst of her wild laughter, she knew. They were gay. That had been that vague feeling she had about them when she checked them in.

The surprise of it slowed her laughter. Then she found tears pouring down her cheeks and she dived for her handkerchief, and while she daubed she scrambled mentally for composure and speech.

"Oh my, those silly little gardens. The gardener that year turned out to be rather crazy, but it's so hard to get help up here I humored him. Do you know how much all that chicken wire cost me? And do you know what he had planted? Petunias!"

"Pee-toon-yas!"

"Yes, and then ouzels picked every one!"

"No!"

"Yes."

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