noon
An aching back and blistered hands were providing him with sensations of a less exhilarating order than those of the early morning . At one time , soon after his `` nooning '' as he liked to call it , the sun blazed so fiercely that he had ignominiously fled before it and taken refuge for an hour or more among the trees . That was the episode which he least liked to remember . He did not quite see why mending a road in the sun should be so much more dangerous than playing polo at high noon , but , somehow , it hurt more ; and he recollected that his late father , who was a physician , had once told him that pain was Nature 's warning . Having , then , entered into a close alliance with Nature , he thought it well to take her hints . Before many days his apprenticeship was over and he was working like a born day-laborer . After the first week he was well rid of aches and pains ; the muscles of his back were strengthened , the palms of his hands were hardened , his skull , he thought to himself , must have thickened .