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summer's too short," Brady complained. "nearly gone."

"Not gone, sonny, just retired, resting, laid-off, taking a breather, gone fishing. Summer's just like you and me, it's got to rest. Lots of work growing the wheat, the flowers, the leaves. And thems overtime hours too. Sun's got to work harder in the summer and sleep less." The man in the white suit took a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it across his white brow. "Yep, won't see many more hot one's like this till next year now."

"I'd do it anyway if I could. I'd make the sun work hard all year round. Keep shinin' long days and keep the fields full and the fish bitin'." Brady shifted in his seat, feeling the wet of his shirt stick to the plastic.

"You wouldn't like it my young friend. You wouldn't like it al all. Once saw summer go on for three years." Brady turned in his seat. "Saw all kinds of strange things happen too. Animals walking themselves to death looking for water that wasn't there. Tigers attacking men just to get a drink of blood. The whole of that part of Africa became a dried up hell. Summer's gotta run its course, but three summers and three falls, three winters, and three springs that were summer too, why it nearly shriveled the Earth itself."

"Just the same, this ain't Africa, and I like summer." Brady persisted with a stubbornness that riled Ralph.

"Summer's as long as summer's supposed to be and it ain't no use wishin' it longer or what. Ain't going to change on account of you." Ralph ground the car from second into third as he crested the top of Fog Hill.

"Not true," said the man in the white suit, "You can make it longer. That's what happened in Africa. Young native fellow wanted summer to last. He wished it to last for so long that it did last. Summer was only a year and a half old when he got to wishing it was over." The old man wet his white lips with his tongue. "He got his first wish; always summer. And I got to tell you, it cost him his soul to get rid of summer."

Brady and Ralph looked at each other. A queer, disbelieving look it was. Brady looked back at the man while Ralph looked through the rear view mirror.

"Yep. Devil played a trick on that one all right. That boy got the summer he wished for plus a whole lot more. People dying, famine from lost crops, animals on the prowl, herds moving away. That boy got too much of a good thing. Then he got to feeling plenty guilty about it all. He got a store of remorse in his soul that was too heavy to bear.

That's when

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