"And then," she said, "and then ..."
Her voice moved on and on as the afternoon grew late and the twilight deepened quickly, but her voice moved in the garden and anyone passing on the road, at a far distance, could have heard its moth sound, faintly, faintly....
Two days later William Forrester was at his desk in his room when the letter came. Douglas brought it upstairs and handed it to Bill and looked as if he knew what was in it.
William Forrester recognized the blue envelope, but did not open it. He simply put it in his shirt pocket, looked at the boy for a moment, and said, "Come on, Doug; my treat."
They walked downtown, saying very little, Douglas preserving the silence he sensed was necessary. Autumn, which had threatened for a time, was gone. Summer was back full, boiling the clouds and scouring the metal sky. They turned in at the drugstore and sat at the marble fountain. William Forrester took the letter out and laid it before him and still did not open it.
He looked out at the yellow sunlight on the concrete and on the green awnings and shining on the gold letters of the window signs across the street, and he looked at the calendar on the wall. August 27, 1928. He looked at his wrist watch and felt his heart beat slowly, saw the second hand of the watch moving moving with no speed at all, saw the calendar frozen there with its one day seeming forever, the sun nailed to the sky with no motion toward sunset whatever. The warm air spread under the sighing fans over his head. A number of women laughed by the open door and were gone through his vision, which was focused beyond them at the town itself and the high courthouse clock. He opened the letter and began to read.
He turned slowly on the revolving chair. He tried the words again and again, silently, on his tongue, and at last spoke them aloud and repeated them.
"A dish of lime-vanilla ice," he said. "A dish of lime-vanilla ice."
Douglas and Tom and Charlie came panting along the unshaded street.
"Tom, answer me true, now."
"Answer what true?"
"What ever happened to happy endings?"
"They got them on shows at Saturday matinees."
"Sure, but what about life?"
"All I know is I feel good going to bed nights, Doug. That's a happy ending once a day. Next morning I'm up and maybe things go bad. But all I got to do is remember that I'm going to bed that night and just lying there a while makes everything okay."
"I'm talking about Mr. Forrester and old Miss Loomis."
"Nothing we can do; she's dead."
"I know! But don't you figure someone slipped up there?"
"You mean about him thinking she was the same age as her picture and her a trillion years old all the time? No, sir, I think it's swell!"
"Swell, for gosh sakes?"
"The last few days when Mr. Forrester told me a little here or a little there and I finally put it all together--boy, did I bawl my head off. I don't even know why. I wouldn't change one bit of it. If you changed it, what would we have to talk about? Nothing! And besides, I like to cry. After I cry hard it's like it's morning again and I'm starting the day over."
"I heard everything now."
"You just won't admit you like crying, too. You cry just so long and everything's fine. And there's your happy ending. And you're ready to go back out and walk around with folks again. And it's the start of gosh-knows-what-all! Any time now, Mr. Forrester will think it over and see it's just the only way and have a good cry and then look around and see it's morning again, even though it's five in the afternoon."
"That don't sound like no happy ending to me."
"A good night's sleep, or a ten-minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine, Doug. You listen to Tom Spaulding, M.D."
"Shut up, you guys," said Charlie. "We're almost there!"
They turned a corner.
Deep in winter they had looked for bits and pieces of summer and found it in furnace cellars or in bonfires on the edge of frozen skating ponds at night. Now, in summer, they went searching for some little bit, some piece of the forgotten winter.
Rounding the corner, they felt a continual light rain spray down from a vast brick building to refresh them as they read the sign they knew by heart, the sign which showed them what they'd come searching for:
SUMMER'S ICE HOUSE.