noon
Though I was not an unhappy boy , there was an aching void in my heart which I could not fill , a longing for such a home as hundreds of my young friends enjoyed ; and I would gladly have exchanged the freedom from restraint for which others envied me for the poorest home in the town , where I could have been welcomed by a fond mother , where I could have had a kind father to feel an interest in me . During the spring , summer , and autumn months , when the wind and weather would permit , I went to school in my sail-boat . My course lay along the shore , and if I was becalmed and likely to be tardy , I had only to moor my craft , and take to the road . At the noon intermission , therefore , my boat was available for use , and I always had a party . On the day that I was called up charged with fighting , the Splash -- for that was the suggestive name I had chosen for my trim little craft -- was lying at the boat pier on the lake in front of the Institute building . The forenoon session of the school had just closed , and I had gone to the boat to eat my dinner , which I always carried in the stern locker . Before I had finished , Bill Poodles came down with an Arithmetic in his hand .