the ten o'clock sun
Oranges and sweet limes were yellow in her orchards , the long-leaved banana trees were swelling with bunches of fruit , the guavas were ready for cream and the boiling . The wine was in the cocoanut , the royal palms had shed their faded summer leaves and glittered like burnished metal . The gorgeous masses of the croton bush had drawn fresh colour from the rain . In the woods and in the long avenues which wound up the mountain to the Great House of every estate , the air was almost cold ; but out under the ten o'clock sun , even a West Indian could keep warm , and the negroes sang as they reaped the cane . The sea near the shore was like green sunlight , but some yards out it deepened into that intense hot blue which is the final excess of West Indian colouring . The spray flew high over the reef between Nevis and St. Kitts , glittering like the salt ponds on the desolate end of the larger island , the roar of the breakers audible in the room where the child who was to be called Alexander Hamilton was born . Rachael rose to a ceaseless demand upon her attention for which she was grateful during the long days of Hamilton 's absence .