noon
Their little forms were not the forms of children , but of diminutive men and women , on whose backs the burden of earning their living had been laid , ere the frames had acquired the strength to bear it . Stunted in mind and body , they were little solemn , pygmy peoples , whom poverty and overwork had canned up and compressed into concentrated extracts of humanity . The flavor -- the juices of childhood -- had been pressed out . '' 'N no wonder , '' thought the Bishop , as he looked down upon them from his crude platform , `` for them little things works six days every week in the factory from sun-up till dark , an ' often into the night , with jes ' forty minutes at noon to bolt their food . O God , '' he said softly to himself , `` You who caused a stream of water to spring up in the wilderness that the life of an Ishmaelite might be saved , make a stream of sentiment to flow from the heart of the world to save these little folks . '' Miss Patsy Butts , whose father , Elder Butts of the Hard-shell faith , owned a fertile little valley farm beyond the mountain , was organist . She was fat and so red-faced that at times she seemed to be oiled .