noon
Julia Peterson , faint with hunger , was tolling back and forth between the corn-rows , holding the handles of the double-shovel corn-plough , while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse . Her heart was full of bitterness , her face flushed with heat , and her muscles aching with fatigue . The heat grew terrible . The corn came to her shoulders , and not a breath seemed to reach her , while the sun , nearing the noon mark , lay pitilessly upon her shoulders , protected only by a calico dress . The dust rose under her feet , and as she was wet with perspiration it soiled her till with a woman 's instinctive cleanliness , she shuddered . Her head throbbed dangerously . What matter to her that the kingbird pitched jovially from the maples to catch a wandering bluebottle fly , that the robin was feeding its young , that the bobolink was singing ?