Meanwhile the work of clearing off the logs was prosecuted with increasing spirit and resolution. And so eagerly intent had all the hands become, in pressing forward to its completion their self-imposed task, which all could see was now fast drawing to a close, that they took no note of the flight of time, and were consequently taken by surprise when the sound of the horn summoned them to their midday meal. “Why! it can’t yet be noon,” exclaimed one, glancing up at the sun. “No,” responded another. “Some of us here have been counting on seeing the whole job nearly done by noon, but it will take three hours yet to do that. No, the women must have made a mistake.” “Well, I don’t know about that: let us see,” said the hunter, turning his back to the sun, and throwing out one foot as far as he could while keeping his body perpendicular. “Now my clock, which, for noon on the 21st of June, or longest day of summer, is the shadow of my head falling on half my foot, and then passing off beyond it about half an inch each day for the rest of the season, makes it, as _I_ should calculate the distance between my foot and the shadow of my head, now evidently receding,--makes it, for this last day of August, about a quarter past twelve.” “I am but little over half past eleven,” said Codman, pulling out and inspecting an old watch. “Phillips, may be, is thinking of that deer that he has been promising himself and us for dinner; and, before I take his calculation on shadows and distances, I should like to know how many inches he allowed for the hurrying influence of his appetite.” “What nonsense, Comical! But what you mean by it is, I suppose, that I can’t tell the time?” “Not within half an hour by the sun.” “Why, man, it is the sun that makes the time; and, as that body never gets out of order or runs down, why not learn to read it, and depend directly upon it for the hour of the day? If half the time men spend in bothering over timepieces were devoted to studying the great clock of the heavens, they need not depend on such uncertain contrivances as common clocks and watches to know the time of day.” “But how in cloudy weather?” “Tell the time of day by your feelings. Take note of the state of your appetite and general feelings at the various hours of the day, when it is fair and you know the time, and then apply the rule when you have no other means of judging; and you may thus train yourself, so that you need not be half an hour out of the way in your reckoning through the whole day.” “Well, supposing it is night?” “Night is for sleep, and it is no consequence to know the time, except the time waking. And, as to that, none need be in fault, if they had you anywhere within two miles to crow for them.” “A regular hit! I own it a hit, Mr. Hunter. But here comes Mr. Elwood: we will leave the question of the time of day to him.”