noon
But it did not stop raining that night , nor for a full week . The scuds of rain , blowing across the river , slapped sharply against the side of the house , and against Ruth 's window all night . She did not sleep that first night as well as she had in the charitable home of the station master and his good wife . The evening meal had been as stiff and unpleasant as the noon meal . The evening was spent in the same room -- the kitchen . Aunt Alviry knitted and sewed ; Uncle Jabez pored over certain accounts and counted money very softly behind the uplifted cover of the japanned cash-box that he had brought in from the mill . She got in time to know that cash-box very well indeed .