noon
` Just a few cups that Kate won , ' he 'll say . ` I want to tell you he 's some beetle-cat ! Look what he 's come up to -- and out of nothing , you might say ! ' '' On the Arrowhead Ranch it was noon by the bell that Lew Wee loves to clang . It may have been half an hour earlier or later on other ranches , for Lew Wee is no petty precisian . Ma Pettengill had ridden off at dawn ; and , rather than eat luncheon in solitary state , I joined her retainers for the meal in the big kitchen , which is one of my prized privileges . A dozen of us sat at the long oilcloth-covered table and assuaged the more urgent pangs of hunger in a haste that was speechless and far from hygienic .