By late morning the apple tree had drawn a tidy ring of coolness on the grass. The donkeys arrived one by one, bowed to the trunk, and waited for the bench to nod before they took a single cool hour in the shade.
We asked at the kiosk by the gate. "I came for cider," said a woman with a paper cup. "A donkey looked at my picnic as if the hour were already reserved. I sat on the sunny side. The shadow that followed was smaller than a thank-you."
The park keeper pinned a note to the trunk: greet the bark first, one hour each, and please do not hurry a neighbor still counting leaves. A day later the same donkey returned, left the cool hour on the grass, and the bench looked calmer than the path.