With the heat and the dust came a plague of insects and one of reptiles. One day the white sugar on the table seemed strangely iridescent with amber, which on investigation resolved itself into myriads of tiny reddish yellow ants. Caleb, who was appealed to, placed a cup of water under each table leg, which abated the plague, but the cups did not "compose" with the table and the rug. Bugs of many kinds visited the house, by way of the windows and doors, until excluded by screens. At times the garden seemed fuller of toads than of plants, and not long afterward Grace was frightened almost daily by snakes. That the reptiles scurried away rapidly, apparently as frightened as she, did not lessen her fear of them. She expressed her feelings to Doctor Taggess, who said:-- "Don't let them worry you. They're really wonderfully retiring by disposition. This country is alive with them, but in my thirty years of experience I've never been called to a case of snake-bite." "But, Doctor, isn't there any means of avoiding the torment of--snakes, toads, bugs, and ants?" "Only one, that I know of--'tis philosophy. Try to think of them as illustrations of the marvellous fecundity of the great and glorious West." "How consoling!" "I don't wonder you're sarcastic about it. Still, they'll disappear in the course of time, as they have from the older states." "But when?" "Oh, when the country becomes thoroughly subdued and tilled." "Again I must say, 'How consoling!'" Besides the wind, and dust, and insects, and reptiles, there was the sun, for Jethro Somerton had never planted a tree near his house. Tree-roots had a way of weakening foundations, he said; besides, trees would grow tall in the course of time, and perhaps attract the lightning. Still more, trees shaded roofs, so the spring and autumn rains remained in the shingles to cause dampness and decay, instead of drying out quickly. But her own house seemed cool by comparison with some which she entered in the village and in the farming districts: houses such as most new settlers in the West have put up with their own hands and as quickly as possible; houses innocent of lath and plaster, and with only inch-thick wooden walls, upon which the sun beat so fiercely that by midday the inner surface of the wall almost blistered the hand that touched it. Not to have been obliged to enter such houses would have spared Grace much discomfort, but it was the hospitable custom of the country to hail passers-by, in the season of open doors and windows, and Grace, besides being bound by the penalties peculiar to general favorites everywhere, was alive to the fear of being thought "stuck up" by any one.