about noon
Boolabong was a very Paradise for vagabonds . There was always flour and meat to be had , generally tobacco , and sometimes even the luxury of a nobbler . The Brownbies were wise enough to have learned that it was necessary for their very existence that they should have friends in the land . On the Sunday the father and Jerry Brownbie were sitting out in the veranda at about noon , and the other two sons , Jack and Joe , were lying asleep on the beds within . The heat of the day was intense . There was a wind blowing , but it was that which is called there the hot wind , which comes dry , scorching , sometimes almost intolerable , over the burning central plain of the country . No one can understand without feeling it how much a wind can add to the sufferings inflicted by heat .