midnight
Now and then the clouds seemed to shadow the good-looking , tanned face of the youth , producing a troubled , sombre expression . The truth is that Master Clinton Boyd Thayer was lonesome and , although he would have denied it vigorously , a little bit homesick . -LRB- At sixteen one may be homesick even though one scoffs at the notion . -RRB- Clinton had left his home at Cedar Run , Virginia , the evening before , had changed into a sleeper at Washington just before midnight , and reached New York very early this morning . From there , although he had until five in the afternoon to reach Brimfield Academy , he had departed after a breakfast eaten in the Terminal and had arrived at Brimfield at a little before nine . An hour had sufficed him to register and unpack his bag and trunk in the room assigned to him in Torrence Hall . Since that time -- and it was now almost twelve o'clock -- he had wandered about the school .