Farewell Summer
Chapters (49)
- Cover
- Farewell Summer
- Dedication
- CONTENTS
- Almost Antietam
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Shiloh and Beyond
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Chapter Twenty-Five
- Chapter Twenty-Six
- Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Chapter Twenty-Eight
- Chapter Twenty-Nine
- Chapter Thirty
- Chapter Thirty-One
- Chapter Thirty-Two
- Chapter Thirty-Three
- Chapter Thirty-Four
- Chapter Thirty-Five
- Appomattox
- Chapter Thirty-Six
- Chapter Thirty-Seven
- Afterword
- FAREWELL SUMMER
- Also By Ray Bradbury
- Copyright
- About The Publisher
Cover
Farewell Summer
RAY BRADBURY
Dedication
With love to John Huff,
alive many years after
Dandelion Wine
CONTENTS
I
Almost Antietam
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
II
Shiloh and Beyond
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
III
Appomattox
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Afterword: The Importance of Being Startled
About the Author
Also by Ray Bradbury
Copyright
About The Publishers
I.
Almost Antietam
Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE
There are those days which seem a taking in of breath which, held, suspends the whole earth in its waiting. Some summers refuse to end.
So along the road those flowers spread that, when touched, give down a shower of autumn rust. By every path it looks as if a ruined circus had passed and loosed a trail of ancient iron at every turning of a wheel. The rust was laid out everywhere, strewn under trees and by riverbanks and near the tracks themselves where once a locomotive had gone but went no more. So flowered flakes and railroad track together turned to moulderings upon the rim of autumn.
‘Look, Doug,’ said Grandpa, driving into town from the farm. Behind them in the Kissel Kar were six large pumpkins picked fresh from the patch. ‘See those flowers?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Farewell summer, Doug. That’s the name of those flowers. Feel the air? August come back. Farewell summer.’
‘Boy,’ said Doug, ‘that’s a sad name.’
Grandma stepped into her pantry and felt the wind blowing from the west. The yeast was rising in the bowl, a sumptuous head, the head of an alien rising from the yield of other years. She touched the swell beneath the muslin cap. It was the earth on the morn before the arrival of Adam. It was the morn after the marriage of Eve to that stranger in the garden bed.
Grandma looked out the window at the way the sunlight lay across the yard and filled the apple trees with gold and echoed the same words:
‘Farewell summer. Here it is, October 1st. Temperature’s 82. Season just can’t let go. The dogs are out under the trees. The leaves won’t turn. A body would like to cry and laughs instead. Get up to the attic, Doug, and let the mad maiden aunt out of the secret room.’
‘Is there a mad maiden aunt in the attic?’ asked Doug.
‘No, but there should be.’
Clouds passed over the lawn. And when the sun came out, in the pantry, Grandma almost whispered, Summer, farewell.