noon
He was proud of the little wife who so generously spared him for an occasional game , and always allowed him to sleep far into the following morning . Other wives at the mine were not so amiable where poker was concerned . But Martin , coming home at three o'clock , dazed with close air and cigar smoke , had awakened his wife to tell her that he would be `` dead '' in the morning , and Cherry had accordingly crept about her own dressing noiselessly , had darkened the bedroom , and eaten her own breakfast without the clatter of a dish , putting the coffee aside to be reheated for him when he awakened . Now she was sitting by the window , panting in the noon heat , and looking down upon a dazzle of dust and ugliness and smothering hotness . She was thinking , as it chanced , of the big forest at home , and of a certain day -- just one of their happy days ! -- only a year ago , when she had lain for a dreamy hour on the soft forest floor , staring up idly through the laced fanlike branches , and she thought of her father , with his mild voice and ready smile ; and some emotion , almost like fear , came over her . For the first time she asked herself , in honest bewilderment , why she had married .