noon
I 'd have lost anything I own rather than that . '' `` It 's unfortunate , '' replied Kate , `` but perhaps it may turn up . '' Poor Ethel took her walk with Patty and Mollie but she was very quiet . That noon she watched a dinner cooked in the open . Two perpendicular stakes with forked ends had been driven in the ground , while lying horizontally across them was another upon which to hang one or more kettles . Each kettle had an iron hook to place on the cross stake , and from them hung the kettles . A roaring fire had been made .