the summer noon
Nature , in the shape of tree , shrub , or grassy sidewalk , is as much shut out from the one street of the rustic village as from the heart of any swarming city . The dark and half ruinous habitations , with their small windows , many of which are drearily closed with wooden shutters , are but magnified hovels , piled story upon story , and squalid with the grime that successive ages have left behind them . It would be a hideous scene to contemplate in a rainy day , or when no human life pervaded it . In the summer noon , however , it possesses vivacity enough to keep itself cheerful ; for all the within-doors of the village then bubbles over upon the flagstones , or looks out from the small windows , and from here and there a balcony . Some of the populace are at the butcher 's shop ; others are at the fountain , which gushes into a marble basin that resembles an antique sarcophagus . A tailor is sewing before his door with a young priest seated sociably beside him ; a burly friar goes by with an empty wine-barrel on his head ; children are at play ; women , at their own doorsteps , mend clothes , embroider , weave hats of Tuscan straw , or twirl the distaff . Many idlers , meanwhile , strolling from one group to another , let the warm day slide by in the sweet , interminable task of doing nothing .