Summer Morning, Summer Night

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The text for “End of Summer” is based on the version collected by Bradbury in Driving Blind (1997). The texts of all other previously published stories in this collection are based on the earliest published versions. I am grateful to David Spiech, my colleague at Indiana University’s Institute for American Thought, for copy editing this volume.

To Jon Eller with love.

Ray

ONE. TWO. HATTIE’S lips counted the long, slow strokes of the high town clock as she lay quietly on her bed. The streets were asleep under the courthouse clock, which seemed like a white moon rising, round and full, the light from it freezing all of the town in late summer time. Her heart raced.

She rose swiftly to look down on the empty avenues, the dark and silent lawns. Below, the porch swing creaked ever so little in the wind.

She saw the long, dark rush of her hair in the mirror as she unknotted the tight schoolteacher’s bun and let it fall loose to her shoulders. Wouldn’t her pupils be surprised, she thought; so long, so black, so glossy. Not too bad for a woman of thirty-five. From the closet, her hands trembling, she dug out hidden parcels. Lipstick, rouge, eyebrow pencil, nail polish. A pale blue negligee, like a breath of vapor. Pulling off her cotton nightgown, she stepped on it, hard, even while she drew the negligee over her head.

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