The colloquial thing at the time in Sumpterville was to gather hay in the western fields, in the morning, and then in the eastern fields in the early evening. A pattern such as this would seem strange, but alas is not. The people of Sumpterville were practical in the least and in all probability coined the very phrase "work smart, not hard" if not then commenced to take it to the bank and cash it in the hope that in twenty years or so this investment would earn a nice sum of interest.
"The mountains," however, provided the un-obvious answer to that stupid question. The mountains provided them shelter from the warm morning sun and the dead, stagnant heat of the late afternoon/ evening. A curious town it was though. The only town in all of known civilization, in all of the history of humanity, to exist on both sides of a mountain.