noon
There was not a soul to hold speech with except the cook , and he was too busy to talk , even if he had not been afflicted with a painful degree of diffidence when she addressed him . She could make no effort at settling down , at arranging things in what was to be her home . There was nothing to arrange , no odds and ends wherewith almost any woman can conjure up a homelike effect in the barest sort of place . She beheld the noon return of the crew much as a shipwrecked castaway on a desert shore might behold a rescuing sail , and she told Charlie that she intended to go into the woods that afternoon and watch them work . `` All right , '' said he . `` Just so you do n't get in the way of a falling tree . '' A narrow fringe of brush and scrubby timber separated the camp from the actual work .