three o'clock in
the afternoon
The girl had five years the start of him , which gave her an enormous advantage in dealing with the uncertain details of life . Her method was simplicity itself . It was summed up in the golden rule : Take your own way first , and then let other people take theirs . It was in this spirit that , mounted on a table , she painted the great battle-piece that covered the north wall of the nursery ; and with equal heroism she met the unrighteous Nemesis that waits upon mortal success , and skipped off to bed at three o'clock in the afternoon as if to a tea-party . Ted worshipped his sister , because of her courage and resource , because of her fuzzy black hair cut short like a boy 's , for the strength of her long limbs , and for a hundred other reasons . And Katherine loved Ted with a passion all the more intense because he was the only creature she knew that would let itself be loved comfortably ; for `` Papa '' was an abstraction , and `` Nurse '' erred on the opposite extreme , being a terribly concrete reality , with a great many acute angles about her , which was a drawback to demonstrations of affection . One day Katherine mixed some colours for Ted and taught him how to manage a pencil and paint-brush .