noon
He was a feature of the Edgewood `` drive , '' being always present during the five or six days that it was in progress , sometimes sitting on the river-bank , sometimes leaning over the bridge , sometimes reclining against the butt-end of a huge log , but always chewing tobacco and expectorating to incredible distances as he criticized and damned impartially all the expedients in use at the particular moment . `` I want to stay down by the river this afternoon , '' said Rose . `` Ever so many of the girls will be there , and all my sewing is done up . If grandpa will leave the horse for me , I 'll take the drivers ' lunch to them at noon , and bring the dishes back in time to wash them before supper . '' `` I suppose you can go , if the rest do , '' said her grandmother , `` though it 's an awful lazy way of spendin ' an afternoon . When I was a girl there was no such dawdlin ' goin ' on , I can tell you . Nobody thought o ' lookin ' at the river in them days ; there was n't time . ''