midnight
From half an hour before sunrise till an hour after sunset , during those entire five days , the tall white birches fell fast , the saw hummed , and the bolts went rolling out on the ice-clad lake . I never saw a crew work with such good-will or felt such enthusiasm myself as during those five days . We had the exhilarating sensation that we were beating a malicious enemy . Every little while a long , cheery whoop of exultation would be raised and go echoing across the lake ; and that last day of February we worked by the light of little bonfires of birch bark till near midnight . Then we stopped -- to clear the law . And I may state here , although it must sound like a large story , that during those five working days the ten of us felled , sawed and rolled out on the ice two hundred and eighty-six cords of white-birch bolts . Of course it was the saw and the two relieving spans of horses which did the greater part of the work , the four axmen doing little more than fell the tall birch-trees .