When our children were young it was my custom to tell them stories in the dark, in their bedrooms, in the tender, dreamish warmth before they fell asleep. I sat in a chair tipped back on its hind legs. The children lay tucked beneath their covers. I smoked. I have since quit; but in those days I, the tale-teller and their father, smoked a pipe whose aroma (I hoped) would ever thereafter attend their memories of--could possibly even trigger their memories of--those holy, communal moments and the murmurous music of my voice. I made the stories up, most often right there on the spot.