Honeysuckle, Jimson weed and Jerusalem oak seed
             My grandfather loved two things beyond all else: the sound of rain that comes in the night and sleeping in a feather bed. His greatest joy was when the two came together.
             When I was a child in my grandfather's house, there were summer nights when I would wake to hear him shuffling blindly though the kitchen. I would rise to see him, clad in his white long johns, climbing the narrow attic steps. Sometimes, I would follow and find him deep in the old feather bed by the window.
             "Hush, now. Don't talk, just listen," he would say. I would creep through the warm darkness where, what seemed like thousands of wasp, alarmed by our presence, droned about and bumbled on the old dusty windows.
             "They wont bother you if you leave them alone. Now lay still."
             I would climb in the bed and curl against his body, listening to the rain sifting through the branches of the big oak trees, pattering on the tin roof of the house, and dripping into buckets and cans. My grandfather actually placed objects around the house to catch the drip from the eaves. I remember the soft "doc, doc," from an old bucket, the "ting," ting," of the rusty cans and the faint drumming of the shingled roof, all blended into a symphony of percussions.
             "Jerusalem oak seed, he would whisper.
             " Honeysuckle and Jimson Weed."
             The beginning of his venture to sleep, he believed that repeating names of plants would produce a growing drowsiness.
             "Sweet juniper, sheep's tongue and love-lies-a-bleeding."
             Once I asked him if he liked the feather bed so much why didn't he sleep in it all the time? "Moderation," he said, like the preacher says. Some things are sweeter if they are taken in sensible doses."
             After a moment, he added, "Besides, your grandmother wouldn't let
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