about nine in the evening
For it had not been the purpose of Israel to marry at once , but at a future day , when prudence should approve the step . So , oppressed by his father , and bitterly disappointed in his love , the desperate boy formed the determination to quit them both for another home and other friends . It was on Sunday , while the family were gone to a farmhouse church near by , that he packed up as much of his clothing as might be contained in a handkerchief , which , with a small quantity of provision , he hid in a piece of woods in the rear of the house . He then returned , and continued in the house till about nine in the evening , when , pretending to go to bed , he passed out of a back door , and hastened to the woods for his bundle . It was a sultry night in July ; and that he might travel with the more ease on the succeeding day , he lay down at the foot of a pine tree , reposing himself till an hour before dawn , when , upon awaking , he heard the soft , prophetic sighing of the pine , stirred by the first breath of the morning . Like the leaflets of that evergreen , all the fibres of his heart trembled within him ; tears fell from his eyes . But he thought of the tyranny of his father , and what seemed to him the faithlessness of his love ; and shouldering his bundle , arose , and marched on .