By midmorning the tea shop on Maple had a harbor the size of a saucer. Mrs. Pell set a thimble-tray of matchstick rafts beside the kettle and asked the first pour not to hurry.
We asked at the counter, while the queue pretended not to lean in. A man with a still-folded newspaper said she told him the leaves like a little lap before they settle. He had assumed she meant the customers.
Each leaf is offered a raft no bigger than a fingernail. They circle once or twice, lift a little green hand toward the spoon, and only then drift to the saucer's rim, as if the cup were a very polite canal. Mrs. Pell says the rafts are cedar shavings from a drawer repair; the leaves, she insists, prefer wood that already smells like home.