noon
`` Sam Perkins at one end of the road and Uncle Aaron at the other , '' brooded Teddy . `` I sure am up against it ! '' But the confession of failure had to be made . The boys had cherished a faint hope that somebody in town might have found the papers , and that when they got back at noon , Uncle Aaron might have recovered them . But although he had been downtown most of the morning and had inquired everywhere , there had been not the slightest trace of them , and he had returned tired and angry . `` Rampagin ' roun ' like de bery Ole Nick , '' was the way Martha described him , when she had a moment alone with Teddy . `` It sho duz beat all , how de good Lo 'd lets people like him cumber de earf . ''