noon
Then she washed her petticoats as well as she could , having nothing but water alone , and all the while she was as naked as a Naiad , and the sun smiled on her brown , thin , childish body as it smiled on a stem of plaintain or on the plumage of a coot . Then when she had washed her skirt she spread it out on the sand to dry , and sat down beside it , for the heat to bake her limbs after her long bath . There was no one , and there was nothing , in sight ; if any came near she could hide under the great dock leaves until such should have passed . It was high noon , and the skirt of wool and the skirt of hemp grew hot and steamed under the vertical rays ; she was soon as dry as the shingles from which the water had receded for months . She sat with her hands clasped round her updrawn knees , and her head grew heavy with the want of slumber , but she would not sleep , though it was the hour of sleep . Some one might pass by and steal her clothes , she thought , and how or when would she ever get others ? When the skirt was quite dried , the blood stains still showed on it ; they were no longer red , but looked like the marks from the sand .