noons
In the ditches the cushioning moss is green and through the brown tangled weeds along Silver Creek the new grass is peeping . The sunny clearing back of Petersen 's woods will be full of mushrooms as the days deepen . And already there are big golden dandelions in Widow Green 's orchard . In these still , warm noons you can hear through the waiting , echoing air the laughing shouts of playing children and the low-dropping honk of the wild geese that in a scarcely quivering line are sailing northward across the reedy lowlands which the gentle spring rains will turn into soft , violet , misty marshes . The last bit of frost has thawed out of the old Glen Road and in the young sunshine it seems to laugh goldenly as it climbs up , up to Jim Gray 's squatty , weathered little farmhouse . The eastern windows of this little silver-gray house are gay with blossoming house plants and across the back dooryard , flapping gently in the spring breeze , is a line of gayly colored bed quilts . For Martha Gray has begun her house-cleaning .