About
noon
laughed Dave , gaily . After Dave had gone , setting out at daybreak on his moose-hide snowshoes , which crunched musically on the hard snow , things went very well for a while at the lonely clearing . It was not so lonely , either , during the bright hours about midday , when the sunshine managed to accumulate something almost like warmth in the sheltered yard . About noon the two red and white cows and the yoke of wide-horned red oxen would stand basking in front of the lean-to , near the well , contentedly chewing their cuds . At this time the hens , too , yellow and black and speckled , would come out and scratch in the litter , perennially undiscouraged by the fact that the only thing they found beneath it was the snow . The vivid crossbills , red and black and white , would come to the yard in flocks , and the quaker-coloured snow-buntings , and the big , trustful , childlike , pine grosbeaks , with the growing stain of rose-purple over their heads and necks . These kept Lidey interested , helping to pass the days that now , to her excited anticipations , seemed so long .