one o'clock in the afternoon
`` Will you stay in town and get the men together , while I go home and see mother and shape up my talk ? '' Caleb Gordon acquiesced , glad of a chance to have somewhat to do . And so , in the very beginning of things , it was the son and not the father who took the helm of the tempest-driven ship . As early as one o'clock in the afternoon , the elder Helgerson , acting as day watchman at the iron-works , had opened the great yard gates , and the men began to gather by twos and threes and in little caucusing knots on the sand floor of the huge , iron-roofed foundry building . Some of the more heedful set to work making seats of the wooden flask frames and bottom boards ; and in the pouring space fronting one of the cupolas they built a rough-and-ready platform out of the same materials . As the numbers increased the men fell into groups , dividing first on the color-line , and then by trades , with the white miners in the majority and doing most of the talking . `` What 's all this buzzin ' round about young Tom ? ''