About noon
He had read of California gamblers who had rushed from tables where they had sat with bowie-knives between their teeth , to warn a coming train of broken rails , and , when picked up maimed and dying , had simply asked if the children were saved , and then , content , had turned aside and died . He knew the story of the Mississippi engineer who , going home with a long-sought fortune to claim his waiting bride , had saved his boat from wreck by supplying the want of fuel by hat , coat , boots , wedding-clothes , gloves , favors , and finally his bag of greenbacks and Northern Pacific bonds , then returning to his duty , sans money , sans wife , but plus honor and a rewarding conscience . When men are capable of such heroism , George would say , arguing from these and similar stories , they are open to true reformation , all that is necessary being some exercise of an influence that shall make such impulses constant instead of spasmodic . About noon he had not been quite so sanguine regarding his mission , and had almost resolved that when they reached Springfield he would return East and join some of his class who were going to the Kaatskills . The sun was then pouring down directly on the boat , the cabin was stifling , the horses crept sluggishly along , the men were rude and brutal , and around him was an atmosphere of frying fish and boiling cabbage . The cabbage was perhaps the crowning evil ; for while he found it possible to force his ear and eye to be deaf and blind to the disagreeable , he had no amount of will that could conquer the sense of smell . There seemed to be little , he thought , with some contempt for his expectations , to reward his quest or maintain his theory that every one had at least one story to tell .