noon
There had never been such a June in Eagle County . Usually it was a month of moods , with abrupt alternations of belated frost and mid-summer heat ; this year , day followed day in a sequence of temperate beauty . Every morning a breeze blew steadily from the hills . Toward noon it built up great canopies of white cloud that threw a cool shadow over fields and woods ; then before sunset the clouds dissolved again , and the western light rained its unobstructed brightness on the valley . On such an afternoon Charity Royall lay on a ridge above a sunlit hollow , her face pressed to the earth and the warm currents of the grass running through her . Directly in her line of vision a blackberry branch laid its frail white flowers and blue-green leaves against the sky . Just beyond , a tuft of sweet-fern uncurled between the beaded shoots of the grass , and a small yellow butterfly vibrated over them like a fleck of sunshine .