noon
Eugene strolled with Angela to the big lawn under the trees and sat down . He was experiencing the loftiest of human emotions on earth -- love in youth , accepted and requited , hope in youth , justified in action by his success in New York ; peace in youth , for he had a well earned holiday in his grasp , was resting with the means to do so and with love and beauty and admiration and joyous summer weather to comfort him . As he rocked to and fro in the hammock gazing at the charming lawn and realizing all these things , his glance rested at last upon Angela , and he thought , `` Life can really hold no finer thing than this . '' Toward noon old Jotham Blue came in from a cornfield where he had been turning the earth between the rows . Although sixty-five and with snowy hair and beard he looked to be vigorous , and good to live until ninety or a hundred . His eyes were blue and keen , his color rosy . He had great broad shoulders set upon a spare waist , for he had been a handsome figure of a man in his youth .