nine o'clock
Sleep , baby , sleep ! '' Over and over she sang it , until at last the heavy lids closed over the blue eyes . Then she crept quietly down the creaking stairs in the dark , and ate her bread and cheese and drank her soup by candle-light with her father and mother , Seppi and Fritz , all seated about the kitchen table . By nine o'clock the room was once more silent and deserted , the little mouse was creeping quietly from his hole in the wall , and Bello lay by the door asleep with his nose on his paws . High over Mt. Pilatus the moon sailed through the star-lit sky , bathing the old gray farm-house in silver light and playing hide and seek with shadows on the snow-capped peaks . `` Cuckoo , '' called the tiny wooden cuckoo nine times , and at once the bells in the village steeple answered him . `` That 's as it should be , '' ticked the cuckoo .