midnight
They were now looking forward to Burt 's return and the holiday season , which Gertrude would spend with them . Mystery lurked behind every door . Not merely the shops , but busy and stealthy fingers , would furnish the gifts . Webb had bought his present for Amy , but had also burned the midnight oil in the preparation of another -- a paper for a magazine , and it had been accepted . He had planned and composed it while at work stripping the husks from the yellow corn , superintending the wood teams and the choppers in the mountain , and aiding in cutting from an adjacent pond the crystal blocks of ice -- the stored coolness for the coming summer . Then while others thought him sleeping he wrote and rewrote the thoughts he had harvested during the day . One of his most delightful tasks , however , was in aiding Amy to embower the old house in wreaths and festoons of evergreens .