one
o'clock
Pearl looked at herself critically in the glass : `` These things should not count , '' she said , as she fastened a thin veil over her face and made it very neat at the back with a hairpin , `` but they do . '' The Purple Springs district was going through a period of intense excitement . Housework languished , dough ran over , dish-water cooled . The news which paralyzed household operations came shortly after one o'clock , when Mrs. Cowan phoned to Mrs. Brownless that the teacher had just been in , and said she was going to board with the woman who lived alone . The teacher had said it , according to Mrs. Cowan , in the `` most off-hand manner , just as if she said she had found her jackknife or her other rubber -- just as easy as that , she said she had found a boarding house . Mrs. Howser could not take her , but Mrs. Gray could , and she was moving over right away . '' Mrs. Cowan , according to her own testimony , nearly dropped .