JUNE O’ THE YEAR 153 
True as all this is, true is it also that no summer 
is rich enough to gift us with many perfect days. 
This day I write of was one of these; and for it 
the God of days be praised. Day and night for 
a week had been raining and cloudy and cold. 
The night air was shivery like North Sea air. 
The night was made for deep sleep. By the 
almanac there was a sickle of a new moon 
(heavenly advent), though we knew it not by 
the sight of our eyes. Clouds prevented and 
whispered in rain on the shingles of our summer 
roof where we could hear in our sleeping room 
the merest whisper of a drop of rain. A body 
lay awake rather than sleep lest a single rustle 
of the garment of the rain should elude him. 
Sleeplessness and slumber were one in comfort. 
We can sleep any time when there is nothing else 
for the doing, but dripping rain must be listened 
for and listened to when it slips past in the dark. 
I had hurried to the sleeping chamber in the 
daytime to hearten me by harkening to the 
cadence of the rain lest I should miss the patter 
of a single drop. 
On this day I now celebrate the morning 
awoke without a cloud. Our one robin red- 
breast awakes the day by the ringing of his 
morning bell. Who or what would not wake to 
hear the robin’s morning call? The phoebe began 
her plaintive widowed proclamation that she was 
phoebe, phoebe, as if certain some one was deny- 
ing her identity. She proclaimed with added 
