nearly noon
This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan . We have nothing to do with David until we find him , at the age of twenty , on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston , where his uncle , a small dealer in the grocery line , was to take him behind the counter . Be it enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire , born of respectable parents , and had received an ordinary school education with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy . After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer 's day , his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade and await the coming up of the stage-coach . As if planted on purpose for him , there soon appeared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the midst , and such a fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan . Virgin or not , he kissed it with his thirsty lips and then flung himself along the brink , pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief . The sunbeams could not reach him ; the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday , and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down .