We have all heard of the “minute-men,” but do you know about the
little boy who played minute-man inside of a big grandfather’s clock,
while the redcoats were waiting to capture his father?
All during the winter Brinton had been saying what he would do if the
redcoats came, and grieving because his age, which was eight, prevented
him from going with his father to fight under General Washington.
Every night, when his mother tucked him in his bed and kissed him
good-night, he told her not to be afraid, that he had promised his
father to protect her, and he proposed to do it.
His plan of action, in event of the sudden appearance of the enemy,
varied somewhat from day to day, but in general outline it consisted
of a bold show of force at the front gate and a flank attack by
Towser, the dog. Should these tactics fail to discourage the British,
he intended to retire behind a stone fort he had built on the lawn,
between the two tall elms, and to fire stones at the invaders until
they fell back in confusion, while his mother would look on and
encourage him from the front porch.
When the redcoats unexpectedly appeared in the distance, one afternoon
in May, what Brinton really did was to run helter-skelter down the
road, up the broad path to the house, through the front hall into the
library, close the door, and then peep out of the window to watch them
go by.
When he first caught sight of the soldiers Brinton was sure that there
was at least a regiment of them, but when they were opposite the front
gate all that he could see were a corporal and three privates. Instead
of keeping on their way, however, they turned up the path toward the
house, and then it seemed to Brinton that they were the most gigantic
human beings that he had ever seen.
His mother was away for the day, and had taken Towser with her. This,
together with the fact that the enemy were now between him and his
fort, entirely spoiled Brinton’s plan of campaign, and he decided to
seek at once some more secluded spot, and there to devise something
to meet the changed conditions. But when he started to run out of the
room, he found that in his hurry he had left the front door open, so
that any one in the hall would be in plain sight of the soldiers, who
were now very near.
Unfortunately there was no other door by which Brinton could leave the
room. What was worse, there was no closet in which he could hide. The
soldiers were now so close at hand that he could hear their voices, and
a glance through the window showed him that two of them were going
around to the back of the house, as if to cut off any possible escape
in that direction.
And his mother would not be back until six o’clock. Instinctively his
eyes sought the face of the tall time-piece in the corner. It was just
three; and he could hear the soldiers’ steps on the front porch!
The clock!
Surely there was room within its generous case for a very small boy. In
less time than it takes to write it Brinton was inside, and had turned
the button with which the door was fastened. As he pressed himself
close against the door, so that there should be room for the pendulum
to swing behind him, he heard the corporal enter the room. He knew it
must be the corporal, because he ordered the other man to go upstairs
and look around there, while he searched the room on the other side of
the hall.
Brinton could hear the footsteps of the men as they walked about the
house, and their voices as they talked to each other. Then all was
quiet for a long while. He was just on the point of peeping out when
all four men entered the room.
“Well,” said a voice that he recognized as the corporal’s, “it is plain
there is no one at ’ome. Me own himpression is that the bird’s flown.
’E’s probably started back for camp, and the wife and the kid with
’im. I don’t believe in payink no hattention to w’at them Tories says,
nohow, goink back on their own neighbors--and kin, too, like as not.
It’s just to curry favor with the hofficers, it’s me own hopinion. ’Ow
did ’e know the Major was comink ’ome to-day, anyhow?”
Nobody answered him. Perhaps he didn’t expect any one to.
The Major! Brinton’s own father! He was coming home! This, then, was
the surprise that his mother had said she would bring him when she
went off with Towser in the morning to go to Colonel Shepard’s. And
now those redcoats were going to sit there and wait until he came, and
then--Brinton did not know what would happen, whether he would be shot
on the spot, or merely put in prison for the rest of his life.
Oh, if he could only get out and run to meet his father and warn him!
But the men seemed to give no signs of leaving the room.
“Perhaps he hasn’t come at all yet,” suggested one of the privates.
“Perhaps ’e hasn’t,” answered the voice of the corporal; “but w’y,
then, wouldn’t his folks be ’ere a-waitink for ’im? ’Owever, I’ll give
’im hevery chance. It’s now five-and-twenty minutes after three. I’ll
give ’im huntil six, but if ’e doesn’t turn hup by then, we’ll start
away for the shore without ’im.”
“Six o’clock!” thought the boy in the clock. The very time his mother
had told him she was going to be home again “with something very nice
for him.” And now she and his brave papa would walk right into the
arms of these dreadful English soldiers, and he could not stop them!
_Whang!_
What a noise! It startled Brinton so much that he nearly knocked the
clock over; and then he realized that it was only the clock striking
half-past three.
Half-past three! He had been in there only half an hour, and already
he was so tired he could hardly stand up. How could he ever endure it
until four, until half-past four, five, six?
“If only something, some accident even, will happen to detain papa and
mamma!” he thought. But how much more likely, it occurred to him, that
his father, having but a short leave of absence, would hasten, and
arrive before six.
“Tick-tock,” went the clock.
“How slow, how very slow!” thought Brinton, and he wished there were
only some way of hurrying up the time, so that the soldiers would go
away.
Still the soldiers stayed in the room, all but one, who had gone into
the kitchen to watch from there.
“Tick-tock,” went the clock, and “whang--whang--whang--whang!” Only
four o’clock. Brinton began to fear that he could not hold out much
longer.
“Tick-tock,” went the clock. Each swing of the pendulum marked one
second, Brinton’s mother had told him. If he could only make it swing
quicker, so that the seconds would fly a little faster!
“Why not try to?” Brinton was on the point of breaking down. He was
desperate. He felt that he must do something. He took hold of the
pendulum and gave it a little push. It yielded readily to his pressure.
None of the soldiers seemed to notice it. He gave it another push. The
result was the same. Brinton began to pick up courage, and he pushed
the pendulum to and fro, to and fro, to and fro.
He tried to keep it swinging at a perfectly even rate, and apparently
he succeeded. At any rate, the soldiers appeared to notice nothing
different. Yet Brinton was sure that he was causing the old clock
to tick off its seconds at a considerably livelier gait than usual.
Half-past four came almost before he knew it, but by five o’clock
Brinton began to realize that he was very, very tired. He had been
standing two hours already in that cramped, dark, close case, and he
had pushed the pendulum first with one hand and then with the other
in that narrow space until both felt sore and lame. Yet now that he
had once begun, he did not dare leave off, and still it did not seem
possible that he could keep it up.
The soldiers had kept very quiet for a long time. Brinton thought that
two of them must be napping.
At five o’clock the soldier who was awake aroused the corporal and the
other private, whom the corporal sent to relieve the man on guard in
the kitchen.
“I must ’ave slept mighty sound,” remarked the corporal. “I’d never
believe I’d been asleep an hour, if I didn’t see it hon the clock.”
“No soigns av any wan yit,” reported the man who had been in the
kitchen, whom Brinton judged to be an Irishman. “Be’s ye going to wait
till six?”
“Yes,” answered the corporal. “But no longer.”
Then they began talking about the British fleet that was cruising in
Long Island Sound, and about the ship on which they were temporarily
quartered until they could join the main body of the army, and how
a neighbor of Brinton’s father’s and mother’s had been down at the
store when a ship’s boat had put in for water, and how he had told the
officer in charge that Major Hall, Brinton’s father, was expected home
for a few hours that day, and what a fine opportunity it would be to
make an important capture.
The clock struck half-past five.
“H’m!” grunted the corporal. “It doesn’t seem that late; but, you know,
you can’t tell anythink about anythink in this blarsted country.”
Brinton now began to be very much afraid that his father would come
before the soldiers left. He wanted to move the pendulum faster and
faster, but after what the corporal had said he did not dare to. Then,
when the men lapsed into silence, it suddenly came over Brinton how
dreadfully weary he was, how all his bones ached, and how much, how
very much, he wanted to cry. But he felt that his father’s only chance
of safety lay in his keeping the pendulum swinging to and fro, to and
fro.
At last, however, came the welcome sound of the corporal’s voice
bidding the men get ready to start.
Whang--whang--whang--whang--whang--whang!
“Fall in!” ordered the corporal. “Forward, march!”
As the sound of their footsteps died away, Brinton, all of a tremble,
opened the door of the clock and stumbled out. He knelt at the window
and watched the retreating forms of the redcoats. As they disappeared
down the road he heard a noise behind him, and jumped up with a start.
There stood his father!
The next instant Brinton was sobbing in his arms.
Brinton’s mother came into the room. “Dear me!” she said; “what ever
can be the matter with the clock? It’s half an hour fast.”