Part 3 (1/2)

”Now you can understand, I guess, why I sent Bailey away, telling him I should have to dream over this bracket clock. Two hundred years is a long time and methods have changed greatly since then. Therefore in order to repair such a product, I shall have to think myself back into the year 1700 and work in the fas.h.i.+on Richard Parsons did; otherwise I cannot successfully take up his handiwork. A clockmaker has to have imagination, you see.”

”I never thought of that.”

”It is such puzzles as these that make my trade interesting,” McPhearson observed. ”If every clock that came to me was of precisely the same pattern as every other, the work I do would be monotonous enough. But it is because clocks are as different as people that they pique my curiosity. Even those turned out in factories, for example, are never twice alike.”

”I should think those would _have_ to be alike,” Christopher responded.

”You'd think so, and so would I if I had not handled so many and learned otherwise. No, every clock has its personality, its little tricks. One doesn't like a cold room, perhaps, and as a protest will stop or lose time; another shows its disapproval of the heat by being ten minutes fast. Still another balks at an incline in the mantelpiece, so slight that n.o.body can see it, and will not tick even. So it goes. And it is not always the most expensive clocks and watches, either, that keep the best time, for sometimes a cheap affair will, for reasons not to be fathomed, put to shame your costly one. Not infrequently I take to pieces a fine clock or watch and fail to find anything the matter with it, and yet it will not go as it should. The creatures actually seem to be stubborn and take notions just as people do.”

”I'd no idea clocks were like that,” mused Christopher.

”That's because you haven't lived with them more than half a century as I have,” the old man returned in friendly fas.h.i.+on. ”I've summered and wintered them, you see, for fifty years and know their tricks and their manners. But this clock of Richard Parsons has no such caprices. It is a fine, sensible clock that goes faithfully about its business unless hindered by the lack of a rivet or a drop of oil. Just now its chimes are bothering; but we'll have them right after a little.”

”Has it chimes?”

”Aye, surely. It has eight bells, though it is a small clock for the table or mantelpiece. The people of 1700 loved music and so did the clockmakers. Therefore clocks like this, that would play a different tune every day of the week, were in great demand. Maybe you never happened to see an old bracket clock of the long ago.”

”No, I never did.” Christopher shook his head.

”I'll go and fetch it. To tell you the truth, I put it away so it shouldn't be a temptation to me. Otherwise I'd be fussing with it and letting commonplace things such as this go.”

McPhearson rose and shuffled away, only to return a few moments later carrying the bracket clock by its bra.s.s handle.

”So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?” inquired he with evident satisfaction.

”No. I certainly never saw a clock with a bra.s.s handle on top to carry it by,” confessed Christopher.

”And what do you say to its gla.s.s back and its beautifully chased works?” McPhearson turned his treasure round. ”It was made to set on a table you see, or before the mirror that hung above the fireplace, in either of which spots the back of it would show almost as much as the front. Therefore its works were engraved, that one side should be quite as pleasing as the other.”

”It's a beauty, isn't it?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?”

_Page_ 24.]

”Well, you won't see many like it,” the Scotchman a.s.serted proudly. ”Not but what a good number of them were turned out in England between 1670 and 1750. But that was a long while ago, and things get scattered and are crowded out by newer fas.h.i.+ons; besides, antique clocks are not always cared for and kept running. Then, too, it isn't always possible to find people who understand repairing such old fellows,” McPhearson explained modestly. ”As I said, they have to be taken as special cases and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now.”

Gently the man put his burden on the workbench.

It was a square clock with arched top and bra.s.s feet; and its face, suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small bra.s.s cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig, minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.

”You can take your choice of tunes, you see,” explained McPhearson.

”There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to s.h.i.+ft the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three hours--at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour.”

”I wish I could hear it play.”

”You shall by and by. And you may select the tune if you like. It has a pretty tone, something like that of a music box; and the selections are pretty, too--old-fas.h.i.+oned airs that were familiar to the people of that day and are now curious and interesting. I want you to notice the bra.s.s spandrels while you are about it, for it is those that do much in helping us determine the dates when old clocks were made.”

”I'm afraid I don't know what a spandrel is,” Christopher announced with appealing frankness.