five o'clock
While he sat looking , now at the street and now at the people sauntering and hurrying to and fro in the Common , he tried to decide a question that had mixed itself up with the formless resentment he had felt ever since Mr. Sewell played him false . It had got out in the neighbourhood that he was going to Boston before he left home ; his mother must have told it ; and people would think he was to be gone a long time . He had warned his mother that he did not know when he should be back , before he started in the morning ; and he knew that she would repeat his words to everybody who stopped to ask about him during the day , with what she had said to him in reply : `` You better come home to-night , Lem ; and I 'll have ye a good hot supper waitin ' for ye . '' The question was whether he should go back on the five o'clock train , which would reach Willoughby Centre after dark , and house himself from public ignominy for one night at least , or whether self-respect did not demand that he should stay in Boston for twenty-four hours at any rate , and see if something would not happen . He had now no distinct hope of anything ; but his pride and shame were holding him fast , while the home-sickness tugged at his heart , and made him almost forget the poverty that had spurred him to the adventure of coming to Boston . He could see the cows coming home through the swampy meadow as plain as if they were coming across the Common ; his mother was calling them ; she and his sister were going to milk in his absence , and he could see her now , how she looked going out to call the cows , in her bare , grey head , gaunt of neck and cheek , in the ugly Bloomer dress in which she was not grotesque to his eyes , though it usually affected strangers with stupefaction or alarm . But it all seemed far away , as far as if it were in another planet that he had dropped out of ; he was divided from it by his failure and disgrace .