The Seventh Wave

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1921 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIII It was the middle of December. Jordan had busied himself through the summer and fall with the routine cares of his property. There was not not so much fruit as on the previous year, but the inexperienced observer, seeing the well-distributed crop, might have considered it quite heavy. It was more than Jordan had expected after the unusual yield of the year before. No change had been made in the owner's labor schedule, and the seven hours of toil which had been his working day from his first occupation of the island was adhered to as in less prosperous times. He did not want to be idle. Inaction was less desirable than heat and fatigue. Any labor requiring judgment gave a certain amount of mental occupation, though routine toil permitted memory many an opportunity to assert itself. In the early evenings, however, with the novelists and scientists he entirely lost himself. The long hot days had left their brand this year on Jordan's face. There were lines which bracing weather--even the recent frosts--had not yet eliminated. Two hundred and fifty days of summer-time is wearing. It undermines physical forces and mental energies. Added to the steady sapping which Jordan's unusual constitution had heretofore resisted came insomnia. Nights of mental tension had brought about unaccustomed sleeplessness, and this particular evening was no exception. It was a still night, the early part of it, and cold. The thermometer stood at forty, which causes native citizens to feel the rigors of zero weather. Ninety degrees during eight months without pause is poor preparation for frost. The change is felt accordingly. Presumably this was a night for sleep, but Jordan's brain was racing. For the hundredth time he was reviewing certain past events. He lay on his b...