midnight
I told them , for one thing , the story of little Angelo Patri . Little Angelo was of that indeterminate Italian age where he helped to support a drunken father without regard to the child-labour laws of the State of New Jersey . His people were tenants upon a fruit-farm a couple of miles from the glass-factory , and little Angelo walked to and from his work along the railroad-track . It is a peculiarity of the glass-factory that it has to eat its children both by day and by night ; and after working six hours before midnight and six more after midnight , little Angelo was tired . He had no eye for the birds and flowers on a beautiful spring morning , but as he was walking home , he dropped in his tracks and fell asleep . The driver of the first morning train on that branch-line saw what he took to be an old coat lying on the track ahead , and did not stop to investigate . All this had been narrated to me by the child 's mother , who had worked as a packer of `` beers , '' and who had loved little Angelo .