June mellowed¹ into July and July moved by in a procession of hot, languorous² days and still, warm nights. Sometimes it rained, and then the leaves and flowers, adroop under the sun's ardor³, quivered and swayed with delight and scented⁴ the moist air with the sweet, faint fragrance⁵ of their gratitude⁶. Often the showers came at night, and Wade⁷, lying in bed with doors and windows open, could hear it pattering upon the leaves and drumming musically upon the shingles⁸. And he fancied, too, that he could hear the thankful earth drinking it in with its millions of little thirsty mouths. After such a night he awoke to find the room filled with dewy, perfumed freshness and radiant with sunshine, while out of doors amidst the sparkling leaves the birds trilled pæans to the kindly⁹ heavens.
 
By the middle of July Wade had settled down comfortably into the quiet life of Eden Village. Quiet it was, but far from hum-drum. On the still, mirrored surface of a pool even the dip of an insect's wing will cause commotion¹⁰. So it was in Eden Village. On the placid¹¹ surface of existence there the faintest zephyr¹² became a gale¹³ that raised waves of excitement; the tiniest happening was an event. It is all a matter of proportion. Wade experienced as much agitation¹⁴ when a corner of the woodshed caught on fire, and he put it out with a broom, as when with forty men behind him, he had fought for hours to save the buildings at the mine two years before. Something of interest was always happening. There was the day when the serpent appeared in Eden. Appropriately enough, it was Eve who discovered it, curled up in the sun right by the gate. Her appeals for assistance brought Wade in a hurry, and the serpent, after an exciting chase through the hedges and flower beds, was finally dispatched. It proved to be an adder¹⁵ of blameless character, but neither Eve nor Miss Mullett had any regrets. Eve declared that a snake was a snake, no matter what any one—meaning Wade—said, and Wade was forced to acknowledge the fact. Armed with a shovel¹⁶, they marched to the back garden, Wade holding the snake by its unquiet tail, and interred¹⁷ it there, so that Alexander the Great, the tortoise-shell cat, wouldn't eat it and be poisoned. Subsequently the affair had to be discussed in all its aspects by Eve and Wade in the shade of the cedars¹⁸.
 
And then there was the anxious week when Zephania had a bad sore throat that looked for awhile like diphtheria, and Wade prepared his own breakfasts and lunches and dined alternately at The Cedars and with Doctor Crimmins. And, of course, there was the stirring occasion of Zephania's return to duty, Zephania being patently proud of the disturbance¹⁹ she had created, and full of quaint²⁰ comments on life, death, and immortality²¹, those subjects seemingly having engaged her mind largely during her illness. For several days her voice was noticeably lacking in quality and volume, and "There is a Happy Land," which was her favorite hymn²² during that period, was rendered so subduedly that Wade was worried, and had to have the Doctor's assurance that Zephania was not going into a decline.
 
These are only a few of the exciting things that transpired²³ during Wade's first month in Eden Village. There were many others, but as I tell them they seem much less important than they really were, and I shall mention only one more. That was something other than a mere²⁴ event; it savored²⁵ of the stupendous; it might almost be called a phenomenon. Its fame spread abroad until folks discussed it over the tea-table or in front of the village stores in places as far distant as Stepping and Tottingham and Bursley. In Eden Village it caused such a commotion as had not disturbed the tranquillity²⁶ since the weather-vane on the church steeple was regilded. As you are by this time, kind reader, in a fever of excitement and curiosity, I'll relieve your suspense²⁷.
 
Wade had his cottage painted, inside and out!
 
Not content with that, he had a new roof put on, built a porch on the south side of the house, cut a door from the sitting-room²⁸, and had the fence mended and the gate rehung! It was the consensus^............