noons
Her heart was open to all the world just then . She went to the window and smiled in at him tenderly . Perhaps it was just as well that James Thorpe could not see that smile , and misunderstand it . Late summer in Kentucky ; deep , umbrageous woodlands fragrant with fern , dreaming noons , shimmering in the heat , with the locust drowsily shrilling ; warm and silver nights , made musical by the loves of many mocking-birds ; the waste places green tangles of blossoming weed , the roads a-flutter with hovering yellow butterflies , over all the land a brooding hush , not the silence of idleness , of emptiness , but of life , intense and still as a spinning top is still . Beneath it those who listen are aware of a faint , constant stirring , a whisper of green and eager things pushing themselves up from the fecund soil . More than ever before was Kate aware of the sympathy that bound her to these fields of hers , soon to be hers no longer . She could not keep away from them .