By eight the front garden looks as if someone has opened a very small mitten drawer. The chrysanthemums have been issued tiny gloves for their petals. Each bloom greets the frost first, nods to the gate, and only then warms a single morning circle.
We asked at the kiosk. "I almost blew on my own hands and called it done," said the man who sells paper bags of nuts. "Then a chrysanthemum lifted a mitten toward the frost, the latch bowed, and the cold stepped back as if it had been offered a seat."
The gardener kept a pencil note in the complaint-and-thanks book: if the frost has not been greeted, please do not hurry the warmth. The next morning a neighbor came back with the same scarf and waited through the greeting, the nod, and the one quiet glow. She said the gate smelled like wool left on a sunny stair, though the coats were still indoors.