ten o'clock
Everything in the village took on a holiday aspect . The orphans were up at dawn , and , decked in their best , flew hither and thither , keeping things stirred up and lively . The school children had a holiday , because the Duke had to go to the wedding early , to help Mrs. Winters set the tables . The mill did not exactly stop running , but nobody settled down to work , for Wes Long , who left at ten o'clock to run home and put on his Sunday clothes , came tearing back in his white shirt-sleeves and with his hair all soapy and wet , with the news that Sandy McQuarry was already at Winters ' , dressed in his Sabbath blacks , and fetching and carrying for the Duke like a trained poodle . Whereupon every man in the mill threw up his job and went down and walked the logs in the pond , and danced , and shoved each other into the water , and behaved in a way that , as Granny Long reported afterward to Sandy , was nothing but defying the Almighty . When the time set for the ceremony approached , Miss Arabella , arrayed in her blue wedding dress and a long white veil , stood in the little spare bedroom , surveying her trembling image in the mirror , between Red Riding-Hood and Little Bo-peep . She dared not sit down , for Susan said she would crush her flounces , and she stood clinging to the bedpost for support , looking like a little , frightened gray sparrow that had somehow got into a bluebird 's feathers .