four o'clock
As Miss Maria returned to the door , the hens , cowering conscience-stricken under the lilacs , sprang up at sight of her with a screech of guilty alarm , and flew out over the fence . `` Well , I vow , '' soliloquized Miss Maria , `` from where she set Lyddy must have seen them pests under the lilacs the whole time , and never said a word . '' She pushed the loosened soil into place with the side of her ample slipper , and then went into the house , where she kindled a fire in the kitchen stove , and made herself a cup of Japan tea : a variety of the herb which our country people prefer , apparently because it affords the same stimulus with none of the pleasure given by the Chinese leaf . Lydia and her grandfather reached Boston at four o'clock , and the old man made a bargain , as he fancied , with an expressman to carry her baggage across the city to the wharf at which the Aroostook lay . The expressman civilly offered to take their small parcels without charge , and deliver them with the trunk and large bag ; but as he could not check them all her grandfather judged it safest not to part with them , and he and Lydia crowded into the horse-car with their arms and hands full . The conductor obliged him to give up the largest of these burdens , and hung the old-fashioned oil-cloth sack on the handle of the brake behind , where Mr. Latham with keen anxiety , and Lydia with shame , watched it as it swayed back and forth with the motion of the car and threatened to break loose from its hand-straps and dash its bloated bulk to the ground . The old man called out to the conductor to be sure and stop in Scollay 's Square , and the people , who had already stared uncomfortably at Lydia 's bundles , all smiled .