nine
o'clock
The Grangers growled about the middle-men ; the Greenbackers said there was n't circulating medium enough , and , in the midst of it all , hard-working , discouraged farmers , like Simeon Burns , worked on , unable to find out what really was the matter . And there , on this beautiful Sabbath morning , Sim sat and thought and thought , till he rose with an oath and gave it up . It was hot and brilliant again the next morning as Douglas Radbourn drove up the road with Lily Graham , the teacher of the school in the little white schoolhouse . It was blazing hot , even though not yet nine o'clock , and the young farmers ploughing beside the fence looked longingly and somewhat bitterly at Radbourn seated in a fine top-buggy beside a beautiful creature in lace and cambric . Very beautiful the town-bred `` schoolma'am '' looked to those grimy , sweaty fellows , superb fellows too , physically , with bare red arms and leather-colored faces . She was as if builded of the pink and white clouds soaring far up there in the morning sky . So cool , and sweet , and dainty .