four
o'clock
`` Yes , indeed ; let the clever Bow-wow have a good time and enjoy Sunday as much as I want my boys to . '' Quite content with this arrangement , Ben went home to dinner , which he made very lively by recounting Billy Barton 's ingenious devices to beguile the tedium of sermon time . He said nothing of his conversation with Miss Celia , because he had not quite made up his mind whether he liked it or not ; it was so new and serious , he felt as if he had better lay it by , to think over a good deal before he could understand all about it . But he had time to get dismal again , and long for four o'clock ; because he had nothing to do except whittle . Mrs. Moss went to take a nap ; Bab and Betty sat demurely on their bench reading Sunday books ; no boys were allowed to come and play ; even the hens retired under the currant-bushes , and the cock stood among them , clucking drowsily , as if reading them a sermon . `` Dreadful slow day ! '' thought Ben ; and , retiring to the recesses of his own room , he read over the two letters which seemed already old to him .