noon
He was so certain of the promised luxuries , the beautiful home , the love of mother and sister , the means for education , -- so sure of them all that he felt he could well afford to wait , and to work while waiting . This toil and poverty would last but a few weeks , or a few months at the longest ; after that there would be a lifetime of pleasure and of peace and of satisfied ambitions . So hope nerved his muscles , and anticipation brought color to his cheeks and fire to his eyes , and the thought of his mother 's kiss lent inspiration to his labor , and no boy that ever worked in Burnham Breaker performed his task with more skill and diligence than he . When the noon hour came the boys took their dinner-pails and ran down out of the building and over on the hill-side , where they could lie on the clean grass in the warm September sunshine , and eat and talk until the bell should call them again to work . Here , before the recess was over , Ralph joined them , feeling very conscious , indeed , of his embarrassing position , but determined to brave it out . Joe Foster set the , ball rolling by asking Ralph how much he had to pay his lawyer . Some one else followed it up with a question relating to his expectations for the future , and in a very few minutes the boy was the object of a perfect broadside of interrogations .