noon
In turn he took his place in the reading class and made a botch of it ; then in the geography class and turned lakes into mountains , mountains into rivers , and rivers into continents , till chaos was come again ; then in the spelling class , and got `` turned down , '' by a succession of mere baby words , till he brought up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation for months . THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book , the more his ideas wandered . So at last , with a sigh and a yawn , he gave it up . It seemed to him that the noon recess would never come . The air was utterly dead . There was not a breath stirring . It was the sleepiest of sleepy days .