noon sun
But no sooner had she gained her feet beneath the peaked roof , than she saw what she had been seeking . It hung by its scarlet tongue from a beam , flanked on one side by the paper of sage that was being saved to season the holiday turkeys , and on the other by the bag that held the trimmings of the Yule-tree . And the little girl , sitting tearfully beneath it , tried to count on her fingers the days that must pass before Christmas . COOL and sparkling after its morning rain-bath , and showing along its green ridges those first , faint signs of yellow that foretell a coming ripeness , the grass-mantled prairie lay beneath the warm noon sun . The little girl , cantering over it toward the sod shanty on the farther river bluffs , frightened the trilling meadow-larks , as she passed , from their perch on the dripping sunflowers , and scattered the drops on the wild wheat-blades with the hoofs of her blind black pony . The storm had wept so copiously upon the fading plains that the furrows , turned along the edge of the broad wheat-field to check fires , ran full and swift down the gentle slope that the little girl was crossing and almost kept pace with her pony . Every hollow in her path was filled to the brim , and the chain of sloughs to the south , now resounding with the joyous quacks of bluewings and mallards , were swelling their waters with the feeding of countless streams .