midnight
Detached engines hurried in and out of sheds and roundhouses , seeking their trains , or bunted the ponderous freight cars into switches ; trundling up and down , clanking , shrieking , their bells filling the air with the clangour of tocsins . Men in visored caps shouted hoarsely , waving their arms or red flags ; drays , their big dappled horses , feeding in their nose bags , stood backed up to the open doors of freight cars and received their loads . A train departed roaring . Before midnight it would be leagues away boring through the Great Northwest , carrying Trade -- the life blood of nations -- into communities of which Laura had never heard . Another train , reeking with fatigue , the air brakes screaming , arrived and halted , debouching a flood of passengers , business men , bringing Trade -- a galvanising elixir -- from the very ends and corners of the continent . Or , again , it was South Water Street -- a jam of delivery wagons and market carts backed to the curbs , leaving only a tortuous path between the endless files of horses , suggestive of an actual barrack of cavalry . Provisions , market produce , `` garden truck '' and fruits , in an infinite welter of crates and baskets , boxes , and sacks , crowded the sidewalks .