There’s a variety of dogwood that forms spiky ping-pong ball sized fruit. They hung threateningly over the head of the button seller. They were pink, going to red, like an unripe strawberry. The button seller said they tasted nasty, though he’d never eaten a ripe one. “Did the birds and squirrels get to them first?”

“The tourists,” he said.

The homeless kid at the Imagine Mosaic sang “Here Comes the Sun.” The day was nearly as perfect as yesterday, low-80s, low humidity, cool, gusty breeze; so I say it’s all right. At the traffic light near Daniel Webster, the bicyclists stopped when the light turned red. “Thank you for stopping,” I said, passing in front of them.

A man shouted from the back of the pack, “It’s ok, we’re Canadian.”

The cowboy was at the fountain with his amp. He’d added a saxophone to his taped arrangements. I twisted around to see if he was playing his guitar at all, but I couldn’t tell. Farther up the path, three guys were on the bench where Meta often sits at her harp. Two of them played jazz riffs on acoustic guitars, while with his toe the third pushed his upturned baseball cap a little farther into the path.

When I got to the maple and started to set up, I heard the accordion, somewhere over by the boathouse. He wasn’t particularly loud, still I heard him. I walked to the end of the path and looked, but I couldn’t see who was playing. His music was slow and mournful, with long pauses between songs. I didn’t want to go anywhere else, so I finished setting up under the maple. I justified my decision in accordance with a busker rule that states: if you can’t hear the other guy while you’re playing, you’re not too close.

A portrait artist set up near me, chased from over the hill, I think, by the jazz guitars. The accordion, which I hadn’t heard for some time, resumed louder than ever. When I looked again, I saw him sitting on his stool, under a bush, an old man wheezing out his dirges. After 30 minutes, I’d made nothing. When the accordion finally went away, I decided to stay where I was.

Jim, the big bubble man, walked by on his way to refill his bucket. “Is the cowboy still there?”

“He comes every day. He’s not nice, not nice.”

“But is he there now?”

“Now? No, he’s gone.”

“Then I’m moving,” I said, throwing everything loose in my case and carrying it over the hill, past the jazz guitars. But before I got much closer I heard the accordion, seated on the bench. Curses, I hissed, although I had to admire how he’d outmaneuvered me.

Back where I started, I got my first quarter from the mom of 2 German girls. When it seemed as if the day would be a financial debacle, a statuesque Danish woman, with her 2 gorgeous Danish/Australian children stopped to hula. India was starting pre-K; her brother Sebastian was going into 2nd. I told a few lies, I’m afraid, so, children, if you remembered my web address and are reading this, despite you mother’s generous fiver, I do not make enough money every year to fly round trip to Hawaii.