midday
Tom had had enough of fastening the iron ring into the outer wall of his shanty , for it had been torn out four times by the shying of the wild horses harnessed to the vehicles sent from Swallowtown to meet passengers . And the day before yesterday Bob Cratchit 's horses had added insult to injury by running off with a board out of the back wall . Tom was sick and tired of it ; the day before he had temporarily stopped up the hole with a tin advertisement , which notified the inhabitants of Swallowtown who wanted to take the train that Millner 's pills were the best remedy for indigestion . Tom decided to set up his post at midday . He stopped work for the present in order to be ready for station-duty when the express from Pendleton passed through in half an hour . From force of habit and half unconsciously , he glanced along the yellow road running south , wondering whether in spite of its being Sunday there might not be some traveler from Swallowtown coming to catch the local train which stopped at the station an hour later . He shaded his eyes with his right hand and after a careful search did discover a cart with two persons in it approaching slowly over the waving expanse of the flower-bedecked prairie .