nine o'clock
The express from Columbia was due . It was almost nine o'clock on Tuesday night , the 31st of August , 1886 . It had been a hot day , sultry toward night , and the loungers at the Summerville station were divided between pitying and envying their neighbors on the excursion train . In such weather , home seems either the most intolerable or the most comfortable place in the world . It had not rained for six weeks , and South Carolina panted .