noon
`` I 'm getting hungry , '' said Horace : `` is n't it about time for the dinner-bell to ring ? '' `` Pretty near , '' replied Peter , squinting his eyes and looking at the sky as if there was a noon-mark up there , and he was the boy to find it . `` That bell will ring in fifteen minutes : you see if it do n't . '' But it did not , though it was high noon , certainly . Hours passed . Horace remembered they were to have had salt codfish and cream gravy for dinner . Aunt Madge had said so ; also a roly-poly with foaming sauce .