midday
What has put all this in your head ? '' `` Those scarfs , for one thing . Another thing was a visit I had lately occasion to make . It was near midday . I found a room as bare as a room could be , of all that we call comfort ; in the floor a small pine table set with three plates , bread , cold herrings , and cheese . That was the dinner for a little boy , whom I found setting the table , and his father and mother . The parents work in a factory hard by , from early to late ; they have had sickness in the family this autumn , and are too poor to afford a fire to eat their dinner by , or to make it warm , so the other child , a little girl , has been sent away for the winter .