eight o'clock
`` Snow will be good for the wheat , '' observed the druggist sagely . Young George Willard , who had nothing to do , was glad because he did not feel like working that day . The weekly paper had been printed and taken to the post office Wednesday evening and the snow began to fall on Thursday . At eight o'clock , after the morning train had passed , he put a pair of skates in his pocket and went up to Waterworks Pond but did not go skating . Past the pond and along a path that followed Wine Creek he went until he came to a grove of beech trees . There he built a fire against the side of a log and sat down at the end of the log to think . When the snow began to fall and the wind to blow he hurried about getting fuel for the fire .