about seven o'clock
She knew that wild beasts would not come near them if a big fire burned briskly ; and all that night she piled on the wood , scraped away the ashes , and watched Ann Mary to see that she did not grow chilly . Hannah does not seem to have been much inclined to talk about her own feelings , and there is no record of what she suffered that night ; but I think we may be sure that it seemed a long time to her before the sky began to whiten in the east . As soon as she could see plainly , she cooked a hearty breakfast of broiled bacon and fried mush , and wakened her two charges to eat it . They made a very early start , and there is nothing more to tell about their journey except that at about seven o'clock that evening the two tired horses crept into the main street of Heath Falls , and a very much excited girl asked the first passer-by where the Indian herb-doctor lived . They found him in a little old house of logs -- the only one that looked natural to them in the prosperous settlement . When Hannah knocked at the door , he opened it himself . He was a small , very old , dark-brown , and prodigiously wrinkled individual , who held up a candle and looked at Hannah with the most impassive eyes she had ever seen -- like little pools of black water unstirred by any wind .