a quarter to five
She awoke just as the day was pinkly breaking and the night stealing greyly away , awoke under the impression that John Brown was cutting off her foot . It was a great comfort to find it there and merely cold and cramped from lack of covering and an unnatural position . She remembered everything immediately without even waiting to rub her eyes , and she sprang out of bed at once , even though her right foot refused to do its duty , and she had to stand for a valuable minute on her left . The clock hands -LRB- she had carried the kitchen clock into her bedroom to Mary 's chagrin -RRB- , pointed to a quarter to five , and Betty realized she had only an hour in which to dress eat her breakfast , bid good-bye to any home objects she held dear , and travel down the road to the store . She was vexed , for she had meant to get up at four . She got into her tattered Saturday 's frock -LRB- her Cinderella costume -RRB- and she brushed and plaited her short curly hair , as well as it would allow itself to be plaited . Then she made a bundle of her boots and stockings and school-day frock and hid them away under the skirt of her draped dressing-table , and opened her money-box and extracted the contents -LRB- thirteen half-pennies -RRB- .