noon
Her only child , John , was at once ordered home by his uncle and guardian , James Penhallow , and after some delay crossed the sea in charge of his tutor . The dependent little fellow hid under a natural reserve what grief he felt , and accustomed to being sent here and there by an absent mother , silently submissive , was turned over by the tutor to James Penhallow 's agent in Philadelphia . On the next day , early in November , he was put in charge of a conductor to be left at Westways Crossing , where he was told that some one would meet him . The day was warm when in the morning he took his seat in the train , but before noon it became clouded , and an early snow-storm with sudden fall of temperature made the boy sensible that he was ill-clothed to encounter the change of weather . He had been unfortunate in the fact that his mother had for years used the vigilant tyranny of feebleness to enforce upon the boy her own sanitary views . Children are easily made hypochondriac , and under her system of government he became self-attentive , careful of what he ate and extremely timid . There had been many tutors and only twice long residence at schools in Vevey and for a winter in Budapest .