noon
Chapter Twelve -- Winter at Rivermouth `` I guess we 're going to have a regular old-fashioned snowstorm , '' said Captain Nutter , one bleak December morning , casting a peculiarly nautical glance skyward . The Captain was always hazarding prophecies about the weather , which somehow never turned out according to his prediction . The vanes on the church-steeples seemed to take fiendish pleasure in humiliating the dear old gentleman . If he said it was going to be a clear day , a dense sea-fog was pretty certain to set in before noon . Once he caused a protracted drought by assuring us every morning , for six consecutive weeks , that it would rain in a few hours . But , sure enough , that afternoon it began snowing . Now I had not seen a snow-storm since I was eighteen months old , and of course remembered nothing about it .