Here the skies have grayed over, sheltering the city from an invisible grueling sun. When these clouds lift, later today, we will be simmering in a comfortable 75-degree heat, while the news reports the first snowfalls of winter in the Midwest. It is a Saturday, the sort of day where the working world doesn't mind sleeping in, recovering from the pressures of the week. The exceptions--the curious early risers, or those who are not chained to calendars--sweep along the dawn streets quietly, their appearances are sporadic as lightning strokes in spring. While the day's light is still only a half-promise, Maggie and I are afield, playing gallop and catch with a tennis ball. She is soaked from the wet grass, but she delights in it after a boring night in-house. The houses we pass on our way home are mostly still asleep, but there is one little cottage where the lights are on and someone is stirring in the kitchen behind the window.

Maggie approves of the faint whiff of bacon as we walk by on the quiet sidewalk. She has no idea, and does not care, that the cottage that sends out such fine aromas is the home of no less a personage than Lillian McClure. Lillian McClure! She who was once the most famous madame in Nevada; she who left everything she had to follow her heart's love for an alcoholic gambler. She, also, who scraped her life back together when he died of cirrhosis by writing her true confessions in a book and selling William Cody's Peacemaker, which she had accepted forty years earlier as payment in kind for services received.

But, as I say, it is the smell of today's bacon, not yesterday's history, which pleaseth today's dog.

So we stroll on and go home to dry off.