seven in the morning
and Stanislovas answered , `` Sixtin . '' Once or twice every year a state inspector would come wandering through the packing plants , asking a child here and there how old he was ; and so the packers were very careful to comply with the law , which cost them as much trouble as was now involved in the boss 's taking the document from the little boy , and glancing at it , and then sending it to the office to be filed away . Then he set some one else at a different job , and showed the lad how to place a lard can every time the empty arm of the remorseless machine came to him ; and so was decided the place in the universe of little Stanislovas , and his destiny till the end of his days . Hour after hour , day after day , year after year , it was fated that he should stand upon a certain square foot of floor from seven in the morning until noon , and again from half-past twelve till half-past five , making never a motion and thinking never a thought , save for the setting of lard cans . In summer the stench of the warm lard would be nauseating , and in winter the cans would all but freeze to his naked little fingers in the unheated cellar . Half the year it would be dark as night when he went in to work , and dark as night again when he came out , and so he would never know what the sun looked like on weekdays . And for this , at the end of the week , he would carry home three dollars to his family , being his pay at the rate of five cents per hour -- just about his proper share of the total earnings of the million and three-quarters of children who are now engaged in earning their livings in the United States .