three o'clock
It was the morning of the Fourth , and Frank was so anxious to get through with his wood-sawing , and begin celebrating with the rest of the boys , that he hardly knew what to do . He had a levvy -LRB- as the old Spanish _ real _ used to be called in southern Ohio -RRB- in his pocket , and he was going to buy a pack of shooting-crackers for ten cents , and spend the other two cents for powder . He had no pistol , but he knew a fellow that would lend him his pistol part of the time , and he expected to have about the best Fourth he ever had . He had been up since three o'clock watching the men fire the old six-pounder on the river-bank ; and he was going to get his mother to let him go up to the fireworks in the court-house yard after dark . But now it did not seem as if he could get wood enough sawed . Twice he asked his mother if she thought he had enough , but she said `` Not near , '' and just as Jake Milrace rode up the saw caught in a splinter of the tough oak log Frank was sawing and bumped back against Frank 's nose ; and he would have cried if it had not been for what Jake began to say . He said he was going to Pawpaw Bottom to spend the Fourth at a fellow 's named Dave Black , and he told Frank he ought to go too ; for there were plenty of mulberries on Dave 's father 's farm , and the early apples were getting ripe enough to eat , if you pounded them on a rock ; and you could go in swimming , and everything .