nine o'clock
At six o'clock his stepmother came to the back door and called him to breakfast . When the meal was over Amos Burr went out to the field , and Nicholas was sent to drive the sheep to the pasture . With vigorous wavings of a piece of brushwood , and many darts from right to left , he succeeded finally in driving them across the road and through the gate on the opposite side , after which he returned to assist his stepmother about the house . Not until nine o'clock , when he had seen the Battle children going up the road , was he free to set off at a run for Kingsborough . As he sped breathlessly along , past the wastelands , into the woods , down the road to the hillside , and down the hillside to the road again , he went too rapidly for thought . The fresh air brushed his heated face gently , and , at the edge of the wood , where the shallow puddles lingered , myriads of blue and yellow butterflies scattered into variegated clumps of colour at his approach , darting from the moist heaps of last year 's leaves to the shining rivulets in the wheel ruts by the way . A partridge whistled from the yellowing green of the wheat , and a rabbit stole noiselessly from the sassafras in the ditch and shot shy glances of alarm ; but he did not turn his head , and his hand held no ready stone .