five o'clock in the morning
The lines in his face had deepened under the influence of sun and wind ; there was a new , almost unnatural ruggedness about the man Simmy had seen less than two months before . The cheeks had the appearance of being sunken and there was an even firmer look to the strong chin and jaws than in the so recent past . Simmy looked at this new , hardy face and wondered whether two months in the rough world would do as much in proportion for his own self-despised countenance . Thorpe had been up since five o'clock in the morning . For two weeks he had started off every morning at that hour with his landlord for the timberlands above the town , where they spent the day hewing out the sills and beams for a new boat-house . Unskilled at such labor , his duties were not those of the practised workman , but rather those of the `` handy man '' upon whom falls the most arduous tasks as a rule . Thorpe 's sinews were strained to the utmost in handling the long , unwieldy trunks of the fallen trees ; his hands were blistered and his legs bruised , but the splendid muscles were no longer sore , nor was he so fatigued at day 's - end that he could have `` dropped in his tracks '' right joyfully , -- as he had felt like doing in the first week of his toiling .