three o'clock in the afternoon
Here was a red house , and there was a brown house , and across the way was a yellow house ; and there was a straggling rail fence or a tribe of mullein stalks between . The minister lived here , and ` Squire Moses lived there , and Deacon Hart lived under the hill , and Messrs. Nadab and Abihu Peters lived by the cross road , and the old `` widder '' Smith lived by the meeting house , and Ebenezer Camp kept a shoemaker 's shop on one side , and Patience Mosely kept a milliner 's shop in front ; and there was old Comfort Scran , who kept store for the whole town , and sold axe heads , brass thimbles , licorice ball , fancy handkerchiefs , and every thing else you can think of . Here , too , was the general post office , where you might see letters marvellously folded , directed wrong side upward , stamped with a thimble , and superscribed to some of the Dollys , or Pollys , or Peters , or Moseses aforenamed or not named . For the rest , as to manners , morals , arts , and sciences , the people in Newbury always went to their parties at three o'clock in the afternoon , and came home before dark ; always stopped all work the minute the sun was down on Saturday night ; always went to meeting on Sunday ; had a school house with all the ordinary inconveniences ; were in neighborly charity with each other ; read their Bibles , feared their God , and were content with such things as they had -- the best philosophy , after all . Such was the place into which Master James Benton made an irruption in the year eighteen hundred and no matter what . Now , this James is to be our hero , and he is just the hero for a sensation -- at least , so you would have thought , if you had been in Newbury the week after his arrival . Master James was one of those whole-hearted , energetic Yankees , who rise in the world as naturally as cork does in water .