nine o'clock
Aunt Patience was the elder of the two ladies , just turned seventy now , and had lived in New York all her life . She had seen Washington when he was the first President of the United States , and lived in Cherry Street with Mrs. Washington and the two Custis children . Afterward they had removed to the Macomb House . Everything had been so simple then , people going to bed by nine o'clock unless on very special occasions . To go to the old theatre on John Street was considered the height of fashionable amusement . You saw the Secretaries and their families , and the best people in the city . But what amused the children most was the Tea Water Pump .