noon
Honest Jock Hallowell built that second meeting-house -- was , indeed , still building it at the time of which we write . He had hewn every beam and king post in it , and set every plate and slip . And Jock Hallowell is the man who , unwittingly starts this chronicle . At noon , on one of those madcap April days of that Coniston country , Jock descended from his work on the steeple to perceive the ungainly figure of Jethro Bass coming toward him across the green . Jethro was about thirty years of age , and he wore a coonskin cap even in those days , and trousers tacked into his boots . He carried his big head bent forward , a little to one aide , and was not , at first sight , a prepossessing-looking person . As our story largely concerns him and we must get started somehow , it may as well be to fix a little attention on him .