three o'clock in the afternoon
There were many `` chores '' to be done these cold mornings before any household could draw a breath of comfort . The Baxters kept but one cow in winter , killed the pig , -- not to eat , but to sell , -- and reduced the flock of hens and turkeys ; but Waitstill was always as busy in the barn as in her own proper domain . Her heart yearned for all the dumb creatures about the place , intervening between them and her father 's scanty care ; and when the thermometer descended far below zero she would be found stuffing hay into the holes and cracks of the barn and hen-house , giving the horse and cow fresh beddings of straw and a mouthful of extra food between the slender meals provided by the Deacon . It was three o'clock in the afternoon and a fire in the Baxters ' kitchen since six in the morning had produced a fairly temperate climate in that one room , though the entries and chambers might have been used for refrigerators , as the Deacon was as parsimonious in the use of fuel as in all other things , and if his daughters had not been hardy young creatures , trained from their very birth to discomforts and exposures of every sort , they would have died long ago . The Baxter kitchen and glittered in all its accustomed cleanliness and order . Scrubbing and polishing were cheap amusements , and nobody grudged them to Waitstill . No tables in Riverboro were whiter , no tins more lustrous , no pewter brighter , no brick hearths ruddier than hers .