about
noon
ever so far ! where the birds are going . '' This made Fritz open his eyes and his mouth very wide . One day in September , when they were idling along by the woods , about noon , the heat was so great and the air so still that the smoke of their little fire , instead of rising straight into the air , fell like water and crept among the briars . The grasshopper had ceased its dull monotonous chirp , not the buzzing of a fly was to be heard , nor the warbling of a bird . The oxen and the cows , with sleepy eyes half-closed , their knees bent under them , were resting together under a spreading oak in the meadow , now and then lowing in a slow , protracted way as if in idle protest against such hot weather . Fritz had begun by plaiting the strands of his whip , but he soon lay down in the long grass with his hat over his eyes , and Friedland came to lie near him , gaping from ear to ear .