midnight
Together they ran over the roofs of buildings on Main Street that have been torn down for thirty years ; they played in barns and corncribs burned down so long ago that their very site is in doubt ; they romped over prairies where now are elm-covered streets ; and they played with boys and girls who have lain forgotten in little sunken graves for a quarter of a century , out on the hill ; or they called from the four winds of heaven playmates who left our town at a time so remote that to the watcher by the bed it seemed ages ago . The games they played were of another day than this . When Joe began crying `` Barbaree , '' he summoned a troop of ghosts , and the pack went scampering through the spectre town in the starlight ; and when that game had tired him the voice began to chatter of `` Slap-and-a-kick , '' and `` Foot-and-a-half , '' and of `` Rolly-poley , '' and of the ball games -- `` Scrub , '' and `` Town-ball , '' and `` Anteover , '' each old game conjuring up spirits from its own vasty deep until the room was full of phantoms and the watcher 's memory ached with the sweet sorrow of old joys . George Kirwin says that long after midnight Joe awakened from a doze , fumbling through the bedclothes , looking for something . Finally he complained that he could not find his mouth-harp . They tried to make him forget it , but when they failed , his mother went to the bureau and pulling open the lower drawer found a little varnished box ; under the shaded lamp she brought out a sack of marbles , a broken bean-shooter , with whittled prongs , a Barlow knife , a tintype picture of a boy , and the mouth-organ . This she gave to the hands that fluttered about the face on the pillow .