When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. Ray Bradbury

      WHEN ELEPHANTS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOMED

      Ray Bradbury

Copyright

      HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1954, 1957, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973

      Cover design by Mike Topping.

       Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

      Ray Bradbury asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007539932

      Version: 2014–07–18

Dedication

       THIS ONE TO THE MEMORY OF

      my grandmother Minnie Davis Bradbury and my grandfather Samuel Hinkston Bradbury, and my brother Samuel and my sister Elizabeth Jane, long lost in the years but now remembered.

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Remembrance

Pretend at Being Blind, Which Calls Truth Near

The Boys Across the Street Are Driving My Young Daughter Mad

Old Ahab’s Friend, and Friend to Noah, Speaks His Piece

When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed

Darwin, the Curious

Darwin, in the Fields

Darwin, Wandering Home at Dawn

Evidence

Telling Where the Sweet Gums Are

Emily Dickinson, Where Are You? Herman Melville Called Your Name Last Night in His Sleep!

       O Give a Fig for Newton, Praise for Him!

       I Was the Last, the Very Last

       Man Is the Animal That Cries

       N

       Air to Lavoisier

       Women Know Themselves; All Men Wonder

       Death in Mexico

       All Flesh Is One; What Matter Scores?

       The Machines, Beyond Shylock

       That Beast upon the Wire

       Christ, Old Student in a New School

       This Time of Kites

       If You Will Wait Just Long Enough, All Goes

       For a Daughter, Traveling

       Old Mars, Then Be a Hearth to Us

       The Thing That Goes By Night: The Self That Lazes Sun

       Groon

       That Woman on the Lawn

       A Train Station Sign Viewed from an Ancient Locomotive Passing Through Long after Midnight

       Please to Remember the Fifth of November: A Birthday Poem for Susan Marguerite

       That Is Our Eden’s Spring, Once Promised

       The