about four o'clock
For , coincidentally with the development of the shack , the builders became something more than partners . Later , no one could remember who first suggested the founding of a secret order , or society , as a measure of exclusiveness and to keep the shack sacred to members only ; but it was an idea that presently began to be more absorbing and satisfactory than even the shack itself . The outward manifestations of it might have been observed in the increased solemnity and preoccupation of the Caucasian members and in a few ceremonial observances exposed to the public eye . As an instance of these latter , Mrs. Williams , happening to glance from a rearward window , about four o'clock one afternoon , found her attention arrested by what seemed to be a flag-raising before the door of the shack . Sam and Herman and Verman stood in attitudes of rigid attention , shoulder to shoulder , while Penrod Schofield , facing them , was apparently delivering some sort of exhortation , which he read from a scribbled sheet of foolscap . Concluding this , he lifted from the ground a long and somewhat warped clothes-prop , from one end of which hung a whitish flag , or pennon , bearing an inscription . Sam and Herman and Verman lifted their right hands , while Penrod placed the other end of the clothes-prop in a hole in the ground , with the pennon fluttering high above the shack .