Just in the Nick of Time . . . . Amid shouts and Hosannas, the World-Famous Fayetteville Strawberry Mandala made its annual appearance.

This is the all-too-brief strawberry season in the Carolina Sandhills region, and the yearly return of this miraculous manifestation was eagerly awaited.

As usual there were unconfirmed reports that its coming raised the dead and stopped the various wars.

More credible were the accounts that its consumption had a definite curative effect on dyspepsia and ill-humour, at least temporarily.

However, our Friends correspondent reported continuing controversy in those ranks. Liberal Hicksites were reliably said to be dosing their arrangements with touches of honey.

Whereupon the Wilberry-ites stormed out of the meetinghouse, insisting that Fragaria × ananassa (the proper traditional name) was only properly eaten PLAIN.

Fortunately, this time UN peacekeepers did not need to be called for. . . .