eight o'clock
`` If you just as soon let me , '' she said to him at last , `` I believe I 'll take them over to the Victory myself to-morrow morning . '' She had hopes of telling their ages bluntly to the mill superintendent and having them refused . Pap agreed negligently ; he had no liking for early rising . And thus it was that Johnnie found herself at eight o'clock making her way , in the midst of the little group , toward the Georgia line and the old Victory plant , which all good workers in the district shunned if possible . As she set her foot on the first plank of the bridge she heard a little rumble of sound , and down the road came a light , two-seated vehicle , with coloured driver , and Miss Lydia Sessions taking her sister 's children out for an early morning drive . There was a frail , long-visaged boy of ten sitting beside his aunt in the back , with a girl of eight tucked between them . The nurse on the front seat held the youngest child , a little girl about Deanie 's age .