eight o'clock
By this time the wheat had been sown , and the last shock of corn gathered . The school forces were , therefore , augmented by the advent of a dozen or more larger boys and young men , eager to gain all the learning that could be compassed in the months which intervened before early spring plowing and seeding would call them again to the fields . In the icy gray dawn of these winter days the boy whose week it was to build the schoolhouse fire , would resist the temptation to snug down again in the soft folds of the big feather bed for another trip into delicious dreamland , and would hurry from his warm nest to attend to his morning chores , so that as soon as the early breakfast was over he could hasten through the snow-covered fields to the schoolhouse . There he would pile the fagots high in the big fireplace , eager to have them blazing and crackling before the clap of the master 's ferule upon his desk at eight o'clock should summon the school to its daily work . Cane Ridge school , under the gentle yet energetic sway of Abner Dudley , presented a busy scene . The click of the soapstone pencil upon the frameless slate , the scratch of the quill pen across the bespattered copybook , the shrill tone of the solitary reader as he stood with the rest of the class `` toeing the mark '' before the master , or the shriller tones of the arithmetic class reciting in concert the multiplication table , kept up a pleasant discord throughout the short day . The rear guard of this army of busy workers , the rows of chubby-faced little boys in short-legged pants and long-sleeved aprons , and of rosy-cheeked little girls in linsey dresses and nankeen pantalets , sat on their slab benches , droning mechanically `` a-b , ab ; e-b , eb , '' and looked with wonder at the middle rank of this army , adding up long columns of figures or singing the long list of capitals .