eleven o'clock
Throwing these beside the back door she climbed to the loft over the spring house , and hunted an old lard oil lantern and one of first manufacture for oil . Both these she cleaned and filled . She listened until everything up stairs had been still for over half an hour . By that time it was past eleven o'clock . Then she took the lantern from the kitchen , the two old ones , a handful of matches , a ball of twine , and went from the cabin , softly closing the door . Sitting on the back steps , she put on the boots , and then stood gazing into the perfumed June night , first in the direction of the woods on her land , then toward the Limberlost . Its outline was so dark and forbidding she shuddered and went down the garden , following the path toward the woods , but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and her courage fled .