Christopher And The Clockmakers Part 12

"Oh, he wouldn't care. Where are you going?"

"Out to Morningside Drive to look at a clock that they want me to see."

"When are you leaving?"

"Right away. I was waiting a second or two to see if you'd put in an appearance."

"That was awfully good of you. I'll get my coat."

"You'd better ask your father."

"Don't worry. He'll think it's all right."

"Still, I'd rather you asked him."

"If it will make you any easier in your mind, I will. It won't take a second."

Off rushed Christopher, only to return breathless a moment or two later.

"Dad says I can go as long as it's with you. And he told me to tell you we needn't rush the trip. Here's money for our fares."

Christopher extended a fresh new bill.

"Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense!" growled McPhearson. "We'll not need that. I've money enough. Besides, we're only going in the bus."

"No matter. Dad said--"

"Come along," interrupted the Scotchman, catching up his bag of tools and cutting short further discussion. "If we stand here arguing we shall never get off at all."

Docilely Christopher followed him into the street where amid surging crowds they hailed the bus and began rolling up the avenue.

"New York couldn't get along very well without clocks, could it?"

commented Christopher, as he looked down upon the maelstrom of hurrying humanity.

"Not very well," laughed his companion. "I suppose the majority of this rus.h.i.+ng mob is aiming to arrive somewhere at a specified time. There are probably men with business engagements; women with dressmakers' and dentists' appointments; students hastening to lectures; people going for trains and cars. You may be reasonably certain it is the clock that is spurring them forward. Earlier in the day the throngs would have been denser than this, for then we should have seen the workers who pour into the city every morning. As it is there are quite enough of them. So it goes from dawn until dusk. Everybody moves on schedule and it is precisely because the day is cut up into this checkerboard of hours that we can fit our work and play together and accomplish so much in it."

"It doesn't leave us much time for play," suggested Christopher mischievously.

"No, I am afraid it doesn't--not enough time. Somehow the proportions have become distorted. We consider play almost a waste of time and with life short as it is, to fool time away has become little short of a sin.

Certainly to waste another person's time is criminal--the actual stealing of a valuable commodity that can never be replaced."

"People who are late never seem to consider themselves thieves," grinned Christopher.

"They ought to," McPhearson answered solemnly. "Everybody's time has a money equivalent in these days. If a man keeps me waiting or talks my time away, he robs me of five or ten or twenty dollars, according to the length of the interval he has kept me from my work."

"Great Scot!" exclaimed the boy in consternation. "At that rate I've run up a whale of a bill."

McPhearson laughed at the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Cheer up, son! I shall not attach your bank account yet," said he. "You see, when I talk to you I can work at the same time, which puts quite a different phase on the matter; and when I cannot both work and talk, why I stop talking. But if I were with some one else it might be my work that would have to stop, and my talk go on, and that would make all the difference."

"Sure!"

"It is useless for us to kick against the rush of the age in which we live," continued McPhearson. "We are here and must move with the tide.

But if we had been born a few hundred years ago, one day would have been so like another that to waste moments or even hours would not have greatly mattered. In fact, people expected to waste time and wait about for nearly everything they wanted. Clothing was made by hand and it took a long time to make it. Even the cloth was spun at home after the day's work was finished, and there was nothing else to do. When you traveled, roads were poor and the stage-coaches obliged to halt at intervals for fresh horses. In the meantime you stopped at an inn and hung about, waiting not only for your own dinner but until the drivers and horses had had theirs. Afterward more precious moments were consumed in harnessing up the new steeds and getting once more under way. Then if no wheels came off, or reins broke, or horses stumbled, not to mention possible onslaughts of highwaymen who beset unfrequented districts, you eventually arrived at your destination."

"At that rate I should never expect to get anywhere," announced Christopher.

"All living proceeded at that ratio or even a slower one, for if you could not afford coach fare you _walked_ to where you were going.

Nevertheless, in spite of the defects of the period, it was considered a very comfortable era, and people were well content with it. Fortunately n.o.body wished to travel very extensively, for as knowledge of geography was scant they did not know there was anywhere to go. Hence they cheerfully remained in the spot where they happened to be born or within a short radius of it.

"About the great estates hung swarms of retainers who in times of peace had little to do. Some of these helped dress the venison brought in from the hunt, some dragged in logs for the fires, some cared for the horses; and with all that there were several times as many retainers as there were duties. Therefore it was unavoidable that many men were idle the greater part of the day. Indeed they had not resources enough to be anything else, for scarce a one of them had any education. They could neither read nor write, and in many cases, their masters could do no better. The bare fact that a n.o.bleman sent his servant to the public square to find out what time it was proves that such little things as quarter or half hours did not concern them much.

"Ladies worked tapestries, danced and sang their days away; gossiped with one another or quarreled with their maids, while the gentlemen of the household hunted, hung about the court, loitered at the inn or rowed on the river. For such an existence as that one did not need to slice his time up into very fine pieces. An idle, leisurely life it was, with little cause for haste. What wonder the clocks had no minute hands when even hours were of such minor importance?"

The bus halted with a jerk, to escape running over an abnormally daring pedestrian.

"A second made some difference to him," said Christopher, when once more the vehicle was in motion.

"All the difference between being in this world and out of it," was the terse reply. "He'd better have lost a minute rather than take a chance like that. But, alas, we have got into the habit of thinking we cannot stop for anything. From morning to night we race about as if the bogey man were at our heels. Sometimes I wish myself in the forest of Arden, where there were no clocks."

"You'd have nothing to repair there, certainly."

"I know it. And before a week was out I should be the most miserable of mortals, in consequence," retorted the Scotchman quickly. "No, no! It is better to be perched up here on a bus whizzing to doctor a balky old clock than to be idle day in and day out."

"Where is the balky old clock you mention?" Christopher inquired.

"In a fine mansion not far from here," replied McPhearson. "A rich old gentleman who is a clock collector lives there all alone with enough servants to man a wars.h.i.+p. You may be sure our shoe leather will not be wasted, for none of his clocks are ever out of commission because of neglect or foolish handling."

Signaling the bus, the travelers descended into the street and walked a few blocks.

"You are sure your old gentleman won't mind my coming with you?"

murmured Christopher, as they neared the house.

"Oh, Mr. Hawley won't mind. I have been coming here for years. He never lets anybody else touch his clocks. If he is at home, he will probably be proud as a peac.o.c.k to show you his treasures; and if he isn't you can look about by yourself. He never minds what I do."

On investigation, however, it proved that Mr. Hawley was not at home.

"He done gone to some board meeting this morning," explained the colored butler. "And sorry enough he'll be to miss you too, Mr. McPhearson, for he always likes havin' a talk with you."

"Which clock is it this time, Ebenezer?"

"Number Seventeen, sir," answered the darky gravely. "She done been kickin' up something vexatious. She absumlutely won't strike with the others--absumlutely won't! After the rest of 'em are through, in she comes a minute late, chiming away on her own hook, all independent like, as if she was runnin' the world. You know what that means. Mr.

Hawley, sir, he won't stand for no nonsense like that--not for a second.

If there's any strikin' to be done round here, or chimin' either, it's got to be done in chorus or not at all. Ain't he been well-nigh a year trainin' those clocks? We've got 'em down now almighty fine too--'cept for Number Seventeen."

"I'll have a look at her."

"Do, sir! She's on the stairway, you know, halfway up."