the sun at
noon
Mamma should not be vexed by hearing of Biddy 's defection ; and there was an invaluable and indignant coadjutor in Andy . Everybody was at the bee . Zack Bunting and his team , Davidson and his team , and his tall sons ; Captain Armytage and Mr. Reginald ; Jacques Dubois and another French Canadian ; a couple of squatters from the other side of the lake ; altogether two dozen men were assembled , with a fair proportion of oxen . It was a burning summer day : perhaps a hundred degrees in the sun at noon . What a contrast to the season which had witnessed the fall of the great trees now logging into heaps . Robert could hardly believe his memory , that for three months since the year began , the temperature of this very place had been below the freezing-point . Mr. Reginald Armytage volunteered to be grog-bos , an office which suited his ` loafing ' propensities , since his duties consisted in carrying about a pail of water and a bottle of whisky to the knots of workmen .