noon in early March
A nine per cent . dividend naturally made the Farley Manufacturing Company 's stock go up a good many points , and word came presently that the largest stockholder and one or two other men had sold out . Then the stock ceased to rise , and winter came on apace , and the hard times which the agent had foreseen came also . One noon in early March there were groups of men and women gathering in the Farley streets . For a wonder , nobody was hurrying toward home and dinner was growing cold on some of the long boarding-house tables . `` They might have carried us through the cold weather ; there 's but a month more of it , '' said one middle-aged man sorrowfully . `` They 'll be talking to us about economy now , some o ' them big thinkers ; they 'll say we ought to learn how to save ; they always begin about that quick as the work stops , '' said a youngish woman angrily .