ten o'clock
The distance was always green and summer-like , but the color they most loved , and which was most familiar to them , was the dark red of the ground beneath their feet everywhere . It showed itself in the roadside bushes ; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the overhanging laurel ; it colored their shoes and pinafores ; I am afraid it was often seen in Indian-like patches on their faces and hands . That it may have often given a sanguinary tone to their fancies I have every reason to believe . It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten o'clock that morning . An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes of Polly and Hickory before breakfast , -- a menial act which in the pure republic of childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest piratical ambition . On the ridge they met one `` Patsey , '' the son of a neighbor , sun-burned , broad-brimmed hatted , red-handed , like themselves . As there were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the Pirates of his own free will , or was captured by them , I endeavor to give the colloquy exactly as it occurred : -- Patsey : `` Hallo , fellers . ''