nine o'clock
`` Brother Wilson preached in town , but after Squire Schuyler give him that house for a weddin ' fee he lived there . That was betwixt and between the town and the country . Martin Luther loved the country jest like his father did , and there never was a watch-meetin ' or a May-meetin ' that Martin Luther was n't on hand ; but I 'm bound to say that most o ' the time it was n't for any good . `` Well , by nine o'clock everything was ready for the watch-meetin ' to begin , and Parson Page set the clock on the floor back o ' the pulpit -- it sounds a heap solemner at a watch-meetin ' , child , to hear the clock strike when you ca n't see it -- and then he give out the first hymn : '' ` A few more years shall roll , A few more seasons come , And we shall be with those that rest , Asleep within the tomb . '' ` A few more suns shall set O'er these dark hills of time , And we shall be where suns are not , A far serener clime . ' '' To me there seemed nothing joy-inspiring in the old hymn , but Aunt Jane smiled radiantly as she chanted the melancholy words that held in their cadences the voices of the choir and the music of the organ in the old country church . `` That 's one o ' the hymns we always sung at a watch-meetin ' , '' she observed , `` that and '' ` Lo , on a narrow neck of land ` Twixt two unbounded seas I stand . '