six o'clock
`` I 'm goin ' , ma ; for golly sakes , I 'm goin ' ! '' said her recalcitrant one , shuffling off toward the staircase , shuffling , shuffling . Then Mrs. Kantor resumed her plumbing , and through the little apartment , its middle and only bedroom of three beds and a crib lighted vicariously by the front room and kitchen , began to wind the warm , the golden-brown fragrance of cake in the rising . By six o'clock the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen Street and the oilcloth-covered table dragged out center and spread by Esther Kantor , nine in years , in the sturdy little legs bulging over shoe-tops , in the pink cheeks that sagged slightly of plumpness , and in the utter roundness of face and gaze , but mysteriously older in the little-mother lore of crib and knee-dandling ditties and in the ropy length and thickness of the two brown plaits down her back . There was an eloquence to that waiting , laid-out table , the print of the family already gathered about it ; the dynastic high chair , throne of each succeeding Kantor ; an armchair drawn up before the paternal mustache-cup ; the ordinary kitchen chair of Mannie Kantor , who spilled things , an oilcloth sort of bib dangling from its back ; the little chair of Leon Kantor , cushioned in an old family album that raised his chin above the table . Even in cutlery the Kantor family was not lacking in variety . Surrounding a centerpiece of thick Russian lace were Russian spoons washed in washed-off gilt ; forks of one , two , and three tines ; steel knives with black handles ; a hartshorn carving-knife .