Lionel Trilling's opening lines to "Of this Time, of that Place"

Lionel Trilling
Wikipedia

One of the first difficult stories I read as a new college student was Lionel Trilling's masterful short story from 1943, "Of this Time, of that Place" (The Three Readers) which opens with these words:

It was a fine September day. By noon it would be summer again but now it was true autumn with a touch of chill in the air. As Joseph Howe stood on the porch of the house in which he lodged, ready to leave for his first class of the year, he thought with pleasure of the long indoor days that were coming. It was a moment when he could feel glad of his profession.

Trilling was not a man to fear an occasional "it" - on this occasion, he uses "it" four times! I might rewrite it as follows:

A fine September day still lingered. Summer would return by noon, but the moment was true autumn with a touch of chill in the air. As Joseph Howe stood on the porch of the house in which he lodged, ready to leave for his first class of the year, he thought with pleasure of the long indoor days that were coming. The moment was one when he could feel glad of his profession.

Does that work better? Or worse? Or just different? Probably worse, an unnecessary editing brought on by my slight dislike of the pronoun "it."