noon
As for the servants , a sudden miraculous zeal possessed them . Within a fortnight the garden rows were hoed free from grass , the hops were gathered from the fence , and the weeds on the lawn vanished beneath small black fingers . Even the annual threshing of the harvest was accomplished under the overseeing eye of `` Miss Chris , '' as she was called by the coloured population . During the week that the old machine poured out its chaffless wheat and the driver whistled in the centre of the treadmill Miss Chris appeared at the barn at noon each day to warn the hands against waste of time and to see that the mules were well watered . But the revolutions without were as naught to the internal ones . Aunt Verbeny , the cook , whose tyranny had extended over thirty years , was assisted from her pedestal , and the hen-house keys were removed from the nail of the kitchen wall . `` This will never do , Verbeny , '' said Miss Chris a month after her arrival .