six o'clock
Some seemed to have straggled away as if they had given up trying to see or hear . So to one nearing it the town had a helter-skelter look . Our travelers passed rough boarded houses with grand-looking people in their dooryards and on their small porches -- men in broadcloth and tall hats and ladies in silk dresses . It was six o'clock and the men had come home to supper . As the horsemen proceeded larger buildings surrounded them , mostly two stories high . There were some stores and houses built of red brick . Beyond the scatter of cheap , wooden structures they came to streets well laid out and crowded and busy and `` very soft '' to quote a phrase from the diary .