“I never remember such a season,” Evan Holmes said. “We’re used to decent, clean hot weather here, that nobody minds; but this is like living in a perpetual vapour-bath. Everybody’s temper is getting on edge!”
The nights were not much better. Often, at sundown, clouds rolled up, and growls of thunder were heard, bringing hopes of rain: then it would all disperse, and the still, clammy heat would do its best to make sleep an impossibility. The twins, generally asleep five minutes after they were in bed, found themselves, to their disgust, tossing and turning in unaccustomed wakefulness. It was small wonder if they overslept themselves when the alarum-clock failed to act.
Everything seemed to go wrong that morning—partly because they tried to carry out the programme in full, not realizing that a lost hour and a half takes too much catching. Older people would have shrugged and let some things go, for once; the twins, being young and stiff-necked, refused to do so, would not take time to eat a reasonable breakfast, and, by the time lessons began, were thoroughly on edge.
The boys, too, had had an unfortunate morning. They had been late, and had rushed the cows up to the milking-shed—bringing a sharp word of reproof from Mr. Weston. Then old Strawberry, infuriated by the clustering flies, had kicked just as Rex had almost finished milking her, and had knocked over half a bucket of milk, most of which bespattered Rex. Billy had unfeelingly howled with laughter, and even Mr. Weston had smiled, though he was annoyed at the loss of the milk—milk was getting scarce as the lucerne crop shrank and the remnant of feed in the paddock dwindled. Rex himself had been astonished at the wave of hot anger that swept over him, and at the dull resentment that followed it. He did not generally feel like that, even if things did go awry. Certainly the clerk of the weather was responsible for much that morning.
Billy’s troubles had come to him after breakfast, when he was sent to clean his father’s brown boots, and absent-mindedly began operations with the tin containing blacking. Mr. Weston had found him gazing at the ruin in a dreamy fashion, which lent the final spark to his father’s just wrath. He lost his temper—in itself an occurrence so rare as to be amazing, and Billy departed hurriedly from the scene, tingling both in mind and body.