“When I got close to him, he smelled clean and steamy, like a late June-rain. And I was reduced to a ridiculous, blubbering pile of melting Jell-O. Criminy.”

“Come clean with a child heartLaugh as peaches in the summer windLet rain on a house roof be a songLet the writing on your facebe a smell of apple orchards on late June.”

“There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em.”

“And while I got that about him, he never seemed to understand or believe it when I told him I wasn't like that. That I was happy to coast. To drift and summersault like a dried-out leaf in the late fall, hoping to avoid the rake, the collecting pile, the compost heap.”

“I have qualms and wonder what a qualm would look like if you painted it -- probably like a bowl of melting ice cream or a dish of Jell-o just before it sets.”

“And they took the strain and off they went up the field the plough cutting clean. I can mind how I stood there and watched him my heart full of pride for him and I breathed in the smell of the earth. Nothing like the smell of new turned earth. A cold metal smell it is, but clean and good like the first breath of life.”