noon
`` This seems to be your busy day , Pickaroon , '' suggested the overseer . `` I make believe this old rack to be a good friend of mine and that the float stuff be sickness come at him -- so I work hard to keep it away . '' The overseer went along about his business , commenting mentally on a Frenchman 's imagination . When the big mill bells clanged the noon hour Etienne hurried to the good woman 's house . The city physician had been there and had left medicine -- two tumblers of it . He had hurried in and had hurried away and had been curt and brusk and had not told her what was the trouble , so the woman reported . But the child had been sleeping .