noon
`` Life is what we make of it , professor . To you , who will appreciate and enjoy every good thing in it , no doubt your new life will be very happy , '' replied Ishmael . And so conversing they passed through the town and entered the deep forest that lay along the shores of the river between Baymouth and Shelton . They rode all the morning through the pleasant woods and stopped an hour at noon to rest and refresh themselves and their horses ; and then resumed their journey and rode all the afternoon and arrived at Woodside just as the sun was setting . As before , Reuben , Hannah , Sam , Sally , the children , and the dog , all rushed out to welcome Ishmael . Much astonished was Hannah to see her old friend , the professor , and much delighted to hear that he was going up to Washington to fill the place of major-domo to Ishmael . For Hannah shared the old woman 's superstition , that the young man is never able to take care of himself ; and notwithstanding all that had come and gone -- notwithstanding that Ishmael had taken care of himself and her too , from the time he was eight years old , for years more , still she thought that he would be all the safer for having `` an old head to look after him . ''