Oranges and Apples

‘The dog chased a hog up a log in the fog’ rhymed the alms man. He made up rhymes and ditties when he felt out of sorts and maudlin, the two inseparable when the nights grew longer and the days shorter. ‘The cat met a rat on a mat and stopped for a chat’. His eyes bent inwards and his chin stuck out, his face a mausoleum of ditties and verse. ‘A bird and Kurd sat on a mat with a cat and a rat, well figure that’. The alms man readjusted the seam in his trousers and laced his untied shoe. ‘The dog barked’ he whispered. ‘Be wary of the fairy, she might be merry,’ he looked from side to side, ‘but rather ugly and hairy’. He was hoping to run into the man in the hat this first day of September. He knew by rote that the man in the hat would willingly share his soup chits should he have any left over from the week before. He remembered that the man in the hat liked soup but not Jell-O and was willing to barter the latter for more of the former. Orange slices and apples cored and pared into sections then gently dropped into the Jell-O bowl.