noon
No child ever sought the old home to beg pears and mulberries , or to fill the school-house pail at its dark-bosomed well , without bearing away a few of the leaves in a covetous grasp . Sweet treasure-trove these , to be pressed to fresh young faces , and held and patted in hot little palms , till they grew flabby but evermore fragrant , still diffusing over the dusty schoolroom that warm odor , whispering to those who read no corner but their own New England , of the myrrh and balsams of the East . We knew everything in those days , we aimless knights-errant with dinner-pail and slate ; the dry , frosty hollow where gentians bloom when the pride of the field is over , the woody slopes of the hepatica 's awakening , under coverlet of withered leaves , and the sunny banks where violets love to live with their good gossip , the trembling anemone . At noon , we roved abroad into solitudes so deep that even our unsuspecting hearts sometimes quaked with fear of dark and lonesomeness ; and then we came trooping back at the sound of the bell , untamed , happy little savages , ready to settle , with a long breath , to the afternoon 's drowsy routine . Arrant nonsense that ! the boundary of British America and the conjugation of the verb _ to be _ ! Who that might loll away the hours upon a bank in silken ease , needed aught even of computation or the tongues ?