five o'clock in the morning
The selectmen of our town had taken Ike Woodbridge from the poor-house and `` bound him out '' to a farmer named Darius Dole . He was to have food , such as Dole and his wife ate , ten weeks ' schooling a year , and if he did well and remained with the Doles until he was of legal age , a `` liberty suit '' of new clothes and fifty dollars . That was the written agreement ; and Farmer Dole , who was a severe , hard-working man , began early to see to it that little Ike earned all that came to him . The boy , who was a little over seven years old , had to be up and dressed at five o'clock in the morning , fetch wood and water to the kitchen , help do chores at the barn , run on errands , pull weeds in the garden , spread the hay swathes in the field with a little fork , and do a hundred other things , up to the full measure of his strength . The neighbors soon began to say that little Ike was being worked too hard . When the old Squire was one of the selectmen , he remonstrated with Dole , and wrung a promise from him that the boy should have more hours for sleep , warmer clothes for winter , and three playdays a year ; but Dole did not keep his promise very strictly . The fall that little Ike was in his eighth year , the threshers , as we called the men who journeyed from farm to farm to thresh the grain , came to the old Squire 's as usual .