NOON
We thought we 'd chance it , and we did . We swooped down and stopped , and Jim shinned down the ladder and fetched up the kid , which was a nice fat little thing , and in a noble good humor , too , considering it was just out of a battle and been tumbled off of a horse ; and then we started for the mother , and stopped back of her and tolerable near by , and Jim slipped down and crept up easy , and when he was close back of her the child goo-goo 'd , the way a child does , and she heard it , and whirled and fetched a shriek of joy , and made a jump for the kid and snatched it and hugged it , and dropped it and hugged Jim , and then snatched off a gold chain and hung it around Jim 's neck , and hugged him again , and jerked up the child again , a-sobbing and glorifying all the time ; and Jim he shoved for the ladder and up it , and in a minute we was back up in the sky and the woman was staring up , with the back of her head between her shoulders and the child with its arms locked around her neck . And there she stood , as long as we was in sight a-sailing away in the sky . `` NOON ! '' says Tom , and so it was . His shadder was just a blot around his feet . We looked , and the Grinnage clock was so close to twelve the difference did n't amount to nothing .