And after that whenever he did tend his beehives, whether the weather was warm or cold, he always wore the pith helmet under the bee veil instead of his usual hat.
Now he doffed it to them.
"Good morning, Philosophers. A pleasure to see you. We're in for another scorcher, I fear."
"The thermometer says 100° right now," Julian was glad to inform him. "Already. It will be worse than that by noon!" He sounded perfectly delighted, and was.
"By Jupiter!" Mr. Payton gave a whistle and dropped his hoe on the ground. "This is no day for gardening, then. Perhaps we'd better go and see how my sister is faring, though she never seems bothered by the heat."
They found Mrs. Cheever sitting on her front porch quite contented. Tarrigo lay at her feet, panting. He rolled his eyes at them pathetically, too hot to bark; but Mrs. Cheever looked cool and composed. She was wearing a dress of embroidered India mull. Once it had been white—"My sister Persy's graduation dress, just fancy!"—but time had tanned it and frayed it in many places. It looked very pretty, though, and she had pinned a rose to her collar, and the bow on her hair was the same color as the rose. She was sitting in a rocking chair with her mending, and on the table beside her lay a palm-leaf fan with green words painted on it: Atlantic City, 1889.
"Why, children, your clubhouse will be suffocating, won't it?"
"We're not going to use it today," Julian told her. "The guys—the other fellows—Tom Parks and Joe Felder are coming here to meet us—"
"And Lucy Lapham, too," Portia interrupted. "She's back visiting the Gaysons, thank goodness."
"The membership reunited, eh?" said Mr. Payton.