about noon
`` We 've talked it over . If you want to , you can come along with us and our home shall be yours and I 'll do what 's right by you . '' They fared along through Indiana and over the wide savannas of Illinois , and on the ninety-seventh day of their journey they drove through rolling , grassy , flowering prairies and up a long , hard hill to the small log cabin settlement of New Salem , Illinois , on the shore of the Sangamon . They halted about noon in the middle of this little prairie village , opposite a small clapboarded house . A sign hung over its door which bore the rudely lettered words : `` Rutledge 's Tavern . '' A long , slim , stoop-shouldered young man sat in the shade of an oak tree that stood near a corner of the tavern , with a number of children playing around him . He had sat leaning against the tree trunk reading a book .