noon
The long , calm summer days succeeded one another in an unbroken , glimmering procession . From dawn to twilight one heard the faint , innumerable murmurs of the summer , the dull bourdon of bees in the rose and lilac bushes , the prolonged , strident buzzing of blue-bottle-flies , the harsh , dry scrape of grasshoppers , the stridulating of an occasional cricket . In the twilight and all through the night itself the frogs shrilled from the hedgerows and in the damp , north corners of the fields , while from the direction of the hills toward the east the whippoorwills called incessantly . During the day the air was full of odours , distilled as it were by the heat of high noon -- the sweet smell of ripening apples , the fragrance of warm sap and leaves and growing grass , the smell of cows from the nearby pastures , the pungent , ammoniacal suggestion of the stable back of the house , and the odour of scorching paint blistering on the southern walls . July was very hot . No breath of wind stirred the vast , invisible sea of air , quivering and oily under the vertical sun . The landscape was deserted of animated life ; there was little stirring abroad .