"I had ambition and I did not want to destroy it by coming back here. I didn't know what I wanted to do then. But I knew that some day I would find it." He searched Ellie's face. "Do you understand that, Sis?" "Yes. I think so." Ada understood also. The tinkling sound of his voice was like the breaking of fine glass. The words came clear and almost before they were spoken she had their meaning. The bitterness was ebbing and in its place there was admiration. A TIME TO LOVE BY DON HOWARD DONNELL Clark stretched his eighteen year old body luxuriously, rippling the splendid muscles he had acquired from a vigorous, outdoor life. He surveyed himself critically. He had just bathed in the icy lake nearby, and the water droplets glistened in the soft mid-morning sun. Standing there, as he felt the breeze dry him, he drank in the beauty of his surroundings. As the sun plucked the moisture from his bronzed skin, he listened attentively to the mocking birds nearby. The birds seemed unaffected by the happenings of the past few years, and sang their song so joyfully that Clark forgot for one happy moment, before memory crept stealthily back into his forcibly matured mind. Slowly he put on his ragged blue jeans, and settled down beneath an oak tree, losing himself in observation of the countryside. The ever present, ever beautiful grass marched stolidly, like long rows of soldiers.... No. Grass does not kill, it must not be compared with soldiers, ever. Yet it marched, rhythmically, in time to something.... Clark pushed the nearly blond, sun-bleached hair out of his youthful, yet hard face, and played with the sickle bladed grass. He pulled one and examined it closely. There was a ladybug on it; he maneuvered it to his finger. A half-forgotten rhyme came to his lips and bubbled into spoken verse: "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away...." What came next? He thought hard, back, back to his childhood to when everything was.... He nearly cried. The hills came up from the morning mist, rough hewn and uneven, reminiscent of a buzzsaw, yet, a buzzsaw did not accurately describe them. They were a deep resplendent purple, streaked with white cold veins. Behind them, gradually building up in the distance, were icy mountains of majestic clouds. And all in all there were the bobbing, bending wild flowers, in numbers and colors too numerous and vivid to describe, with wild-honey honey bees like black buzzing dots, floating from the daisy to the dandelion, pollenating, and birds darting across the deep expanse of turquoise blue that was the sky. The warm, active, late spring day tended to create a sense of security, no matter how false, and his head fell to his chest, and he slept.