noon
Away with you and your blarneying ! '' And so they went through the warm noontide , and little he cared for the heat that wilted the fat mullein leaves and made the barefoot boy , who passed by , skip gingerly through the burning dust with anguished mouth and watery eye . Little he knew of the locust that suddenly whirred his mills of shrillness in the maple-tree , and sounded so hot , hot , hot ; or those others that railed at the country quiet from the dim shade around the brick house ; or even the rain-crow that sat on the fence and swore to them in the face of a sunny sky that they should see rain ere the day were done . Little the young man recked of what he ate at Judge Briscoe 's good noon dinner : chicken wing and young roas 'n' - ear ; hot rolls as light as the fluff of a summer cloudlet ; and honey and milk ; and apple-butter flavored like spices of Arabia ; and fragrant , flaky cherry-pie ; and cool , rich , yellow cream . Lige Willetts was a lover , yet he said he asked no better than to Just go on eating that cherry-pie till a sweet death overtook him ; but railroad sandwiches and restaurant chops might have been set before Harkless for all the difference it would have made to him . At no other time is a man 's feeling of companionship with a woman so strong as when he sits at table with her-not at a `` decorated '' and becatered and bewaitered table , but at a homely , appetizing , wholesome home table like old Judge Briscoe 's . The very essence of the thing is domesticity , and the implication is utter confidence and liking .