Time of Wonder

Citation preview

Time of Wonder RoLert McCloskey

O^B/^

Time

of

Wonder

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in

2010

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TIME

WONDER

%^ f

ROBERT McCLOSKEY THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK

By

•

X'iking

Ptnguin

Inc.,

Penguin Books Ltd, 27

VIKING KESTREL Street. New York. Ne«

40 West 23rd

U'rigtits

Lane. London \V8

Harmondsworth, Middlesev, England (Distribution Penguin Books

.\ustralia Ltd.

York lOOIO. U.S.A.

5TZ (Publishing &

Ringwood.

Editorial)

N'ictoria. .Australia

L3R 1B4 New Zealand

fcnguin Books Canada Limited, 2801 John Street. Markham, Ontario, Canada Ptnguin Books (N.Z

)

Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10,

Copyright Robert McCloskey, 1957 Copyright

© renewed Robert McCloskey, 1985 .\11

First

rights reserved

published in 1957 b> Viking Ptnguin Inc. Published simuItaneousU' in Canada

Without limiting the publication

rights

under cop>Tight reserved above, no part of this

may be reproduced,

stored in or introduced into a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

and

& Warehouse)

means

(electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Time

of

Wonder

Q

on the islands

^ut

that poke their rocky shores

above the waters of Penobscot Bay,

you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute,

hour to hour, from day to day, season to season.

You can w^atch

Camden

the

a cloud peep over

Hills, thirty miles

— see

across the

bay

and grow

as it

it

slowly grow^

comes nearer and

nearer; see it darken the hills its

shadow^;

and then,

Hog

Two

Island,

Pond

Island,

Island, Spectacle Island,

Bush Island

with

see it darken,

one after the other, Islesboro,

Western

aw^ay

— darken all

the islands in between, until

A .

s'^

*

WLSf«T#»

'.isiff

;"

'i^sfV

.

.

.

—

you, on your island, are standing in the shadow, \vatching the rain

begin to

down

spill

w^ay across the bay.

The

rain comes closer

Now

you hear a million

Now

you even

on the water

.

and

closer.

splashes.

see the drops .

on the age-old rocky point

on the bavberrv

.

.

.

.

on the grass ....

Now^ take a breath

8

gar=

IT'S

lO

RAINING ON YOU!

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