nine o'clock
`` Is there a place where you can keep it during school hours ? '' `` I can keep it down under the first floor stairs , '' said Bobby eagerly . `` And I wo n't play with it only before school and at recess , Mother , honest . '' So he was allowed to take the car , and he went early in order to have time for play before the nine o'clock bell . Meg hung on behind him and the twins watched them out of sight enviously . There was nothing in the world the twins desired so ardently as to go to school . They had been promised that they might start in the kindergarten the next term and they were already looking forward to that time .