twelve o'clock
I ai n't acting in a businesslike way about it . I ought to put myself on the market , but I let first one thing and then another interfere , and now it seems to be little Joe . I think I 've got a sort of mother-love for him , Alfred . He works over in his field , and me in mine , and when it 's twelve o'clock I get out my dinner-bucket and call to him , and we both go down to the spring and have a picnic . That 's where I learn him to read . If old Pitman was to get on to it I reckon he 'd raise a row . Joe fetches his pore little scraps of streak-o ' - lean , streak-o ' - fat bacon an ' hoe-cake along , but I make ` im throw the stuff away .