two to three in the morning
There 's a youngish lady in Boston , and a very , very old gentleman out in Brookline , and the tiniest sort of a poor little sick girl in Cambridge . Sometimes I turn up just at supper-time and jolly them along a bit with their gruels . Sometimes I do n't get around till ten or eleven o'clock in the great boo-black dark . From two to three in the morning seems to be the cruelest , grayest , coldest time for the little girl in Cambridge ... . And I play the banjo decently well , you know , and sing more or less -- and tell stories , or read aloud ; and I most always go dressed up in some sort of a fancy costume 'cause I ca n't seem to find any other thing to do that astonishes sick people so much and makes them sit up so bravely and look so shiny . And really , it is n't such dreadfully hard work to do , because everything fits together so well . The short skirts , for instance , that turn me into such a jolly prattling great-grandchild for the poor old gentleman , make me just a perfectly rational , contemporaneous-looking play-mate for the small Cambridge girl .