six o'clock
We got one of his heelers fixed -LRB- of course we usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from Farwell Knowles -RRB- , and this heeler showed the whole business up for a consideration . There was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles , where the balloting was to take place in the office-room of a hook-and-ladder company . In the corner was a small closet with one shelf , high up toward the ceiling . It was in the good old free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times , and when the polls closed at six o'clock it was planned that the election officers should set the ballot-box up on this shelf , lock the closet door , and go out for their suppers , leaving one of each side to watch in the room so that nobody could open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the ballots before they were counted . Now , the ceiling over the shelf in the closet was n't plastered , and it formed , of course , part of the flooring in the room above . The boards were to be loosened by a Gorgett man upstairs , as soon as the box was locked in ; he would take up a piece of planking -- enough to get an arm in -- and stuff the box with Gorgett ballots till it grunted . Then he would replace the board and slide out .