ten o'clock
From the time I pinned up my skirt until I came out , with my face the colour of that smoke-stack , was n't more than an hour , or maybe an hour and a half , but I had that house as clean and fresh as a new pine-wood box . I had a _ New York Herald _ with me , and I lined their shelf with paper for them . Well , Mr. Stephens , when I had done washing my hands outside , I came past the door again , and there were those two children sitting on the stoop with their eyes full of flies , and all just the same as ever , except that each had a little paper cap made out of the _ New York Herald _ upon his head . But , say , Sadie , it 's going on to ten o'clock , and tomorrow an early excursion . '' `` It 's just too beautiful , this purple sky and the great silver stars , '' said Sadie . `` Look at the silent desert and the black shadows of the hills . It 's grand , but it 's terrible , too ; and then when you think that we really _ are _ , as that dragoman said just now , on the very end of civilisation , and with nothing but savagery and bloodshed down there where the Southern Cross is twinkling so prettily , why , it 's like standing on the beautiful edge of a live volcano . ''