nine
o'clock
She bought John Markley 's clothes , so that his Sunday finery contained nothing giddier than a grey made-up tie , that she pinned around the collars which her own hands had ironed . Slowly as their fortune piled up , and people said they had a million , his brown beard grizzled a little , and his brow crept up and up and his girth stretched out to forty-four . But his hands did not whiten or soften , and though he was `` Honest John , '' and every quarter-section of land that he bought doubled in value by some magic that he only seemed to know , he kept the habits of his youth , rose early , washed at the kitchen basin , and was the first man at his office in the morning . At night , after a hard day 's work he smoked a cob-pipe in the basement , where he could spit into the furnace and watch the fire until nine o'clock , when he put out the cat and bedded down the fire , while `` Ma '' set the buckwheat cakes . They never had a servant in their house . We used to see John Markley pass the office window a dozen times a day , a hale , vigorous man , whose heels clicked hard on the sidewalk as he came hurrying along -- head back and shoulders rolling . He was a powerful , masculine , indomitable creature , who looked out of defiant , cold , unblinking eyes as though he were just about to tell the whole world to go to hell !