three o'clock
* * * * * It was quite dark before Dale reached home . The return trip had been much harder to make than the one that morning . The holiday was over and there was no spirit of adventure to buoy him up , no consciousness that he was going to be of use to some one who needed him . Also , there was plenty of time to think of the good cheer he had missed at home -- that family feast to which , as long as he could remember , they had sat down at three o'clock on Thanksgiving afternoon . It had become so fixed and seemingly immovable that Dale had not even considered the possibility of changing it . And so it was with a tired and lagging step that he walked up from the gate and opened the front door . Inside , he paused suddenly and sniffed .