four o'clock
It is a village street , with great elms on either side , while along the middle stands another row set in a narrow strip of grassy common , so that the street and roadway are in reality double . The dwellings on either side are not only widely parted by the broad street , but are still further isolated , each in its large garden of ancient fruit trees . It is four o'clock of a sunny August afternoon , and a quiet , Sabbath-like but for its lazy voluptuousness , broods over the scene . No carriage , or even pedestrian , has passed for an hour . The occasional voices of children at play in some garden , the latching of a gate far down the street , the dying fall of a drowsy chanticleer , are but the punctuation of the poem of summer silence that has been flowing on all the afternoon . Upon the tree-tops the sun blazes brightly , and between their stems are glimpses of outlying meadows , which simmer in the heat as if about to come to a boil .