noon
Eating his breakfast in his usual wolfish fashion , he went out into the hot sun with his team and riding-plow , not a little disturbed by this new phase of his wife 's `` cantankerousness . '' He plowed steadily and sullenly all the forenoon , in the terrific heat and dust . The air was full of tempestuous threats , still and sultry , one of those days when work is a punishment . When he came in at noon he found things the same -- dinner on the table , but his wife out in the garden with the youngest child . `` I c 'n stand it as long as _ she _ can , '' he said to himself , in the hearing of the children , as he pushed back from the table and went back to work . When he had finished the field of corn it was after sundown , and he came up to the house , hot , dusty , his shirt wringing wet with sweat , and his neck aching with the work of looking down all day at the corn-rows . His mood was still stern .