three o'clock
The people had come in rapidly -- giants from the Crab Orchard , mountaineers from through the Gap , and from Cracker 's Neck and Thunderstruck Knob ; Valley people from Little Stone-Gap , from the furnace site and Bum Hollow and Wildcat , and people from Lee , from Turkey Cove , and from the Pocket -- the much-dreaded Pocket -- far down in the river hills . They came on foot and on horseback , and left their horses in the bushes and crowded the streets and filled the saloon of one Jack Woods -- who had the cackling laugh of Satan and did not like the Guard , for good reasons , and whose particular pleasure was to persuade some customer to stir up a hornet 's nest of trouble . From the saloon the crowd moved up towards the big spring at the foot of Imboden Hill , where , under beautiful trunk-mottled beeches , was built the speakers ' platform . Precisely at three o'clock the local orator much flurried , rose , ran his hand through his long hair and looked in silence over the crowd . `` Fellow citizens ! There 's beauty in the stars , of night and in the glowin ' orb of day . There 's beauty in the rollin ' meadow and in the quiet stream .