Linda B looks back on a hot afternoon at her grandmother's house, when the children lay on beds set out on the porch, reading and fanning themselves with church pictures. The grandmother refuses to admit the heat is anything serious. "Pshaw! It's not as hot as last summer," she says, then offers more lemonade. Her brushing-off is gentle and funny, and it shows how people coped with the weather by carrying on.
The small details carry the feeling. An uncle is sent for a nickel's worth of ice chips and lingers at the ice house, soaking up its cold and its smell of sawdust. The children grow bored with their books and move on to games. As the sun sinks and the temperature drops, the day turns toward supper and Grandpa coming in from the fields.
The speaker's tone is fond and unhurried. The mood is warm, drowsy and comforting, a memory of a simple day in which nothing much happens and that is exactly its charm.