Sugar Plum
                                            
                            by Reginald Bretnor
                            
                                28 Mar, 2019                            
                            
                         
                                        
                                                                        At the waterfall's edge, flowering trees twisted their roots in the cliffside, and a fresh wind scattered plumes of its spray through their leaves. Taller trees, bell-blossomed, fanned out from the pool, gave way to a meadow, and followed the course 
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                                                At the waterfall's edge, flowering trees twisted their roots in the cliffside, and a fresh wind scattered plumes of its spray through their leaves. Taller trees, bell-blossomed, fanned out from the pool, gave way to a meadow, and followed the course of the stream down a broadening valley—among faceted boulders of translucent quartz, rose-pink, green, and golden, sheltering small, lustrous spires of fragile fungi.
On the meadow stood the house, the latest in Second Victorian, complete with carved plastic false-front in early Schenectady Gothic. The Buttons themselves, with Cousin Aurelia, stood in front of it. They wore long linen dusters and sun helmets with heavy mosquito veils. They were going exploring. Less