five o'clock
Toward the end of the afternoon a lot of boys and girls began playing a game which seemed to belong to the hayfield . Each one of the bigger boys would twist up a rope of hay and run after a girl , and when he had thrown it over her neck he could kiss her . Girls are girls the whole world over , and it was funny to see how some of them would run like mad to get away from the boys , and how dreadfully troubled they would be when they was caught , and yet , after they had been kissed and the boys had left them , they would walk innocently back to the players as if they never dreamed that anybody would think of disturbing them . At five o'clock everybody -- farm hands , ladies , gentlemen , school-children , and all -- took tea together . Some were seated at long tables made of planks , with benches at the sides , and others scattered all over the grass . Miss Pondar and our maid Hannah helped to serve the tea and sandwiches , and I was glad to see that Hannah wore her pointed white cap and her black dress , for I had on my woollen travelling suit , and I did n't want too much cart-before-the-horseness in my domestic establishment . After tea the work and the games began again , and as I think it is always better for people to do what they can do best , I turned in and helped clear away the tea-things , and after that I sat down by a female person in black silk -- and I am sure I did n't know whether she was the lady of the manor or somebody else until I heard some h-words come out in her talk , and then I knew she was the latter -- and she told me ever so much about the people in the village , and why the rector was n't there , on account of a dispute about the altar-cloths , and she was just beginning to tell me about the doctor 's wife sending her daughters to a school that was much too high-priced for his practice , when I happened to look across the field , and there , with the bar lady at the inn , with her hat trimmed with pink , and the Marie Antoinette chambermaid , with her hat trimmed with blue , was Jone , and they was all three raking together , as comfortable and confiding as if they had been singing hymns out of the same book .