the noon sun
`` Mr. Meech and I never thought to keep her this long . The doctor says it 's the beginning of the end . She 's so patient it 's enough to break your heart . '' Sandy went without his dinner that day , and tramped to town and back , in the glare of the noon sun , to get her a basket of fruit . Then he wrote her a letter so full of affection and sympathy that it brought the tears to his own eyes as he wrote . He took the basket with the note and left them at her door , after which he promptly forgot all about her . For his whole purpose in life these days , aside from assisting the government in the distribution of mail and reading a musty old volume of Blackstone , was learning to dance .