Charles Scribner's Sons
1915
Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons
Published March, 1915




AUGUST FIRST

"Whee!"

The long fingers pulled at the clerical collar as if they might tear it
away. The alert figure swung across the room to the one window not
wide open and the man pushed up the three inches possible. "Whee!" he
brought out again, boyishly, and thrust away the dusty vines that hung
against the opening from the stone walls of the parish house close by.
He gasped; looked about as if in desperate need of relief; struck back
the damp hair from his face. The heat was insufferable. In the west
black-gray clouds rolled up like blankets, shutting out heaven and air;
low thunder growled; at five o'clock of a midsummer afternoon it was
almost dark; a storm was coming fast, and coolness would come with it,
but in the meantime it was hard for a man who felt heat intensely just
to get breath. His eyes stared at the open door of the room, down the
corridor which led to the room, which turned and led by another open
door to the street.

"If they're coming, why don't they come and get it over?" he murmured
to himself; he was stifling--it was actual suffering.