about four o'clock in the afternoon
On the bank on which they stood the colouring was more quiet . A few ragged spikes of the purple aster were all that grew under the gray green willows , which with every breath turned the silver underside of their soft foliage to the wind . The place for the baptism had no doubt been chosen because of the depth of the water , and because the bank here was comparatively bare . It was about four o'clock in the afternoon . The steady sound of the mattock in a neighbouring field was the only token of the common bustling world that lay close around the curious isolation of the hour . It was time that Angel Halsey should be baptized . In his Quaker clothes he waded into the water .