noon
Our fellowship with my brethren was grateful to her as it was to me ; but meseems it was a different thing in those early years from what it was in later days . While I write a certain summer day from that long past time comes back to my mind strangely clear . We had played long enough in our chamber , and we found it too hot in the loft under the roof , where we had climbed on to the beams , which were great , so we went down into the garden . Herdegen had quitted us in haste after noon , and we found none but Kunz , who was shaping arrows for his cross-bow . But he ere long threw away his knife and came to be with us , and as he was well-disposed to Ann as being my friend , he did his best to make himself pleasing , or at least noteworthy in her sight . He stood on his head and then climbed to the top of the tallest fruit-tree and flung down pears , but they smote her head so that she cried out ; then he turned a wheel on his hands and feet , and a little more and his shoe would hit her in the face ; and when he marked that he was but troubling us , he went away sorrowful , but only to hide behind a bush , and as we went past , to rush out on a sudden and put us in fear by wild shouting . My eldest brother well-nigh affrighted us more when he presently joined us , for his hair was all unkempt and his looks wild .