silence. Roses and honeysuckles took up all the air with their fragrance. All through the noon hours people lay flat on the warm earth, resting, turning up the soles of their lazy feet to the sun, that great friend of man, who not only gives light and food, but healing.
In Mary's house, fat flies swam about in circles all day long, droning the same tunes over and over. Dusk brought swarms of hungry mosquitoes out of the woods to pester men and beasts until rags were set afire and the smoke smothered to make a stench that drove them away. Crickets sang, frogs called, lightning-bugs sparkled in the dusk. The sky came close to the earth, and a soft haze veiled the fields as a thin green tide of life spread and deepened over the world. Dawns grew pinker, noons brighter, afternoons long and yellow. Short fierce storms boomed up out of the west, growling and thundering, drenching the earth with clean cool rain, then passed on, leaving a rainbow behind them. Open windows let tattered curtains stream out gaily in the breeze. Fires in the old chimneys were neglected and left to burn low. Skillets and spiders and pots sat cold and dumb on the hearths. Thank God, winter was gone. Mary could feel the spring growing in herself warming her blood, mixing strength with her weakness.
