noon
Help ? From whom ? As my mind ran over these questions , still at every pause the old rigmarole kept dinning -- `` Mud wo n't daub sieve , sieve wo n't hold water , water wo n't wet stone ... '' on and on without ceasing , and still I toiled and sweated . By noon the hut was clean , at any rate tolerably clean ; but its soaked floor would certainly take many hours in drying , and Nat must spend another night under the open sky . I left the hut , snatched a meal of bread and cheese , and , after a pull at the wine flask , turned my attention to the sty . To cleanse it before nightfall was out of the question . I examined it and saw three good days ' labour ahead of me .