four o'clock
They fared forth to the riffle below the dam , which deepens in the shade under the water elm ; this was the pool known as `` baby hole , '' despised of the ten-year-olds , who plunged into the deepest of the thicket and came out at the limekiln , where all day long one might hear `` so-deep , so-deep , so-deep , '' and `` go-round , go-round , go-round , '' until school commenced in the fall . Then the rattle of little homemade wagons , and the shrilling of boy voices might be heard all over the wilderness , and the black-stained hands of schoolboys told of the day of the walnut harvest . It was nearly a mile from the schoolhouse to the woods , and yet on winter afternoons no school-ma ` am could keep the boys from using school hours to dig out the screw-holes and heel-plates of their boots before wadding them with paper . At four o'clock a troop of boys would burst forth from that schoolhouse so wildly that General Durham of the _ Statesman _ , whose office we used to pass with a roar , always looked up from his work to say : `` Well , I see hell 's out for noon again . '' In the spring the boys fished , and on Saturdays go , up the river or down , or on either side , where one would , one was never out of sight of some thoughtful boy , sitting either on a stump or on a log stretching into the stream , or squatting on a muddy bank with his worm can beside him , throwing a line into the deep , green , quiet water . Always it was to the woods one went to find a lost boy , for the brush was alive with fierce pirates , and blood-bound brother-hoods , and gory Indian fighters , and dauntless scouts . Under the red clay banks that rose above the sluggish stream , robbers ' caves , and treasure houses , and freebooters ' dens , were filled with boys who , five days in the week and six hours a day , could '' _ amo amas amat , amamus amatus amant _ '' with the best of them .