midday
It happened to be a bright and somewhat too sunny July day , which is not an unusual happening along the banks of the Hudson . You could see the heat , and if anything had soughed it could only have been the mercury in my thermometer . This I must say clicked nervously against the top of the glass tube and manifested an extraordinary desire to climb higher than the length of the tube permitted . Incidentally I may add , even if it be not believed , that the heat was so intense that the mercury actually did raise the whole thermometer a foot and a half above the mantel-shelf , and for two mortal hours , from midday until two by the Monastery Clock , held it suspended there in mid-air with no visible means of support . Not a breath of air was stirring , and the only sounds heard were the expanding creaks of the beams of my house , which upon that particular day increased eight feet in width and assumed a height which made it appear to be a three instead of a two story dwelling . There was little work doing in the house . The children played about in their bathing suits , and the only other active factor in my life of the moment was our hired man who was kept busy in the cellar pouring water on the furnace coal to keep it from spontaneously combusting .