noon
Gasping for breath and crunching for foothold the sidewalk people breasted the gritty cold . Puckered with chills and goose-flesh , the fireside people huddled and sneezed around their respective hearths . Shivering like the ague between his cotton-flannel blankets , Stanton 's courage fairly raced the mercury in its downward course . By noon his teeth were chattering like a mouthful of cracked ice . By night the sob in his thirsty throat was like a lump of salt and snow . But nothing outdoors or in , from morning till night , was half as wretchedly cold and clammy as the rapidly congealing hot-water bottle that slopped and gurgled between his aching shoulders . It was just after supper when a messenger boy blurted in from the frigid hall with a great gust of cold and a long pasteboard box and a letter .