noon
Poor Lydia seemed somehow never to have decent shoes . But her hands and the back of her neck were clean ; and her pile of Junior school books already had been paid for -- by picking small fruit for Ma Norton during the summer and helping her to can it . She came back to school with zeal and less than her usual sense of shabbiness . It was a day toward the first of October at the noon hour that Lydia met Kent and Charlie Jackson . She had finished her lunch , which she ate in the cloakroom , and bareheaded and coatless was walking up and down the sidewalk before the schoolhouse . `` Hello , Lyd ! How 's everything ? ''