At first light the laundry on Maple Street hung a row of squares no larger than a napkin. They belonged to the neighborhood drafts, who had left them in a basket marked for overnight guests. By breakfast the squares were dry, pale lavender, and almost too polite to flutter.
We asked at the kiosk on the corner. "I used to slam the kitchen window," said a man with a paper bag of rolls. "This morning something tapped twice, I opened, and the room smelled like a garden that had remembered its manners."
A neighbor had whispered that the wind was applying for a job as a doorman. The attendant, folding the last tiny handkerchief, only shook her head. "They already know the houses," she said. "They just wanted something clean to press against the sill so they would not arrive dusty."
The next day a few extra pegs appeared on the line, in case a shy breeze from the park needed a turn before supper.