about eleven o'clock
A spectator riding along the road would have remarked upon the lovely setting for this picturesque scene -- the low swells of prairie , shrouded with faint , misty light from the unclouded sky , the flaming colors of the trees , the faint sound of cow-bells , and the cheery sound of the machine . But to be a tourist and to be a toiler in a scene like this are quite different things . They were anxious to finish the setting by noon , and so the feeder was crowding the cylinder to its limit , rolling the grain in with slow and apparently effortless swaying from side to side , half-buried in the loose yellow straw . But about eleven o'clock the machine came to a stand , to wait while a broken tooth was being replaced , and Milton fled from the terrible dust beside the measuring-spout , and was shaking the chaff out of his clothing , when he heard a high , snappy , nasal voice call down from the straw-pile . A tall man , with a face completely masked in dust , was speaking to Mr. Jennings : `` Say , young man , I guess you 'll haf to send another man up here . It 's poorty stiff work f ' r two ; yes , sir , poorty stiff . '' `` There , there !