noons
The marvel of the reappearing earth in the springtime after the long months of winter ... The dreaded snow stealing away in prankish rivulets down every slope ; the tree-roots first resurgent , then the mosses drenched with wet , soon the ground freed from its burden whereon one treads with delighted glances and sighs of happiness like the sick man who feels glad life returning to his veins ... Later yet , the birches , alders , aspens swelling into bud ; the laurel clothing itself in rosy bloom ... The rough battle with the soil a seeming holiday to men no longer condemned to idleness ; to draw the hard breath of toil from morn till eve a gracious favour ... -- The cattle , at last set free from their shed , gallop to the pasture and glut themselves with the fresh grass . All the new-born creatures -- the calves , the fowls , the lambs , gambol in the sun and add daily to their stature like the hay and the barley . The poorest farmer sometimes halts in yard or field , hands in pockets , and tastes the great happiness of knowing that the sun 's heat , the warm rain , the earth 's unstinted alchemy -- every mighty force of nature -- is working as a humble slave for him ... for him . -- And then , the summertide ; the glory of sunny noons , the heated quivering air that blurs the horizon and the outline of the forest , the flies swarming and circling in the sun 's rays , and but three hundred paces from the house the rapids and the fall -- white foam against dark water -- the mere sight of it filling one with a delicious coolness . In its due time the harvest ; the grain that gives life heaped into the barns ; then autumn and soon the returning winter ... But here was the marvel of it , that the winter seemed no longer abhorrent or terrifying ; it brought in its train the sweet intimacies of a house shut fast , and beyond the door , with the sameness and the soundlessness of deep-drifted snow , peace , a great peace . . In the cities were the strange and wonderful things whereof Lorenzo Surprenant had told , with others that she pictured to herself confusedly : wide streets suffused with light , gorgeous shops , an easy life of little toil with a round of small pleasures and distractions .