noon
But when she had reached the wheat , the booming , like a will-o ' - the-wisp , had been temptingly farther on ; and she had turned back to the newly marked corn-land . Her big brothers had sent her out to drop and cover eighty rows , the last corn-planting to be done that year on the big Dakota farm . They had finished the rest of the field themselves and , intent on getting in the rutabaga crop , had turned over the remaining strip to the little girl , declaring that she could drop and cover forty rows in the morning and forty in the afternoon , and not half try . To make sure that she would have time to finish the work , they had started her off immediately after a five-o'clock breakfast ; and in order that she should not lose any time at noon , they had made her take her dinner with her in a tall tin pail . Her first glimpse of the unplanted piece had greatly discouraged her , for it seemed dreadfully wide and long . So , after deciding to plant the whole of it before doing any covering with the hoe , because the dropping of the corn was much easier and quicker to do than the hoeing , she went to work half-heartedly . Now , to make her task seem short , she had further determined to play `` city . ''