eight in the morning
Mrs. Brandeis had soon learned that Fanny and Theodore could manage their own school toilettes , with , perhaps , some speeding up on the part of Mattie , the servant girl . But it needed her keen brown eye to detect corners that Aloysius had neglected to sweep out with wet sawdust , and her presence to make sure that the counter covers were taken off and folded , the outside show dusted and arranged , the windows washed , the whole store shining and ready for business by eight o'clock . So Fanny had even learned to do her own tight , shiny , black , shoulder-length curls , which she tied back with a black bow . They were wet , meek , and tractable curls at eight in the morning . By the time school was out at four they were as wildly unruly as if charged with electric currents -- which they really were , when you consider the little dynamo that wore them . Mrs. Brandeis took a scant half hour to walk the six blocks between the store and the house , to snatch a hurried dinner , and traverse the distance to the store again . It was a program that would have killed a woman less magnificently healthy and determined .