mornings, about four o'clock
`` Let 's lay and talk a spell , '' said he . `` I never come round back of the barn here , but that I think of the fox I shot when I was a young man . That fox had a ` brush ' as big ` round as your leg , the biggest fox-tail I ever saw . He had been coming around the barns for some time ; I used to hear him bark , mornings , about four o'clock . '' The Old Squire then went on , at length , to tell me how he watched for the fox , and how he loaded the old `` United-States-piece '' musket for it , and how he finally fired and shot the fox , but that the gun nearly broke his collar-bone , he had loaded it so heavily . He was nigh half an hour telling me all about it , and in spite of myself , I grew somewhat interested . `` Why , how these mosquitoes do bite ! ''