three o'clock
There was one other sacred duty to perform . When the orphan son left Albany one winter morning there stood in one of the marble shops of the city , ready to be set up with the first breath of spring , a plain and simple tombstone bearing for record only these two words , `` Dear Mother , '' and underneath this seemingly inappropriate inscription , understood only by himself , `` Before they call I will answer , and while they are yet speaking I will hear . '' The day was unusually cold in which Theodore , on his homeward journey , was delayed at a quiet little town . The Express train , due at three o'clock , had been telegraphed three hours behind time , and he took his way somewhat disconsolately to a dingy little hotel to pass the intervening hours as best he might . `` Strange ! '' he muttered drearily , `` that I should have been delayed just here , only forty miles from home , with not a single earthly object of interest to help pass the hours away . '' He went forward to the forlorn little parlor , where a few sticks of wet wood were sizzling and smoking , and vainly trying to burn in a little monster of a stove over in one corner .