noon
Then Hedrick was pronounced inferior to others in turning `` cartwheels , '' but succeeded in a wrestling match for an apple , which he needed . Later , he was chased empty-handed from the rear of an ice-wagon , but greatly admired for his retorts to the vociferous chaser : the other boys rightly considered that what he said to the ice-man was much more horrible than what the ice-man said to him . The ice-man had a fair vocabulary , but it lacked pliancy ; seemed stiff and fastidious compared with the flexible Saxon in which Hedrick sketched a family tree lacking , perhaps , some plausibility as having produced even an ice-man , but curiously interesting zoologically . He came home at noon with the flush of this victory new upon his brow . He felt equal to anything , and upon Cora 's appearing at lunch with a blithe , bright air and a new arrangement of her hair , he opened a fresh campaign with ill-omened bravado . `` Ear-muffs in style for September , are they ? '' he inquired in allusion to a symmetrical and becoming undulation upon each side of her head .