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CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
[Illustration: "Those men--one of them took a ring--I saw him."
FRONTISPIECE. _See page_ 34.]
CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
by
SARA WARE BASSETT
With Illustrations by William F. Stecher
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1925
Copyright, 1925,
by Sara Ware Bassett.
All rights reserved
Published September, 1925
Printed in the United States of America
TO THE MEMORY OF
RICHARD PARSONS, SIMON WILLARD AND JOHN BAILEY,
A TRIO OF CONSCIENTIOUS CRAFTSMEN, WHOSE HANDIWORK
STILL SURVIVES THEM TO CHEER MY HOME AND TESTIFY
DAILY TO THEIR FIDELITY AND SKILL.
S. W. B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING 1
II CHRISTOPHER MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE 12
III CHRISTOPHER ESCAPES BEING A HERO 31
IV AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE 39
V CHRISTOPHER ASTONISHES HIMSELF 49
VI CLOCKS THAT WERE GOOD AS PLAYS 64
VII AN EXCURSION 81
VIII AN ADVENTURE 101
IX CHRISTOPHER RECOGNIZES AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 112
X AN AMAZING ADVENTURE 125
XI THE SEQUEL TO THE LETTER 137
XII CLOCK GIANTS 147
XIII CLOCKS ON LAND AND CLOCKS AT SEA 162
XIV HOW RUBIES, SAPPHIRES, AND GARNETS HELPED
TO TELL TIME 176
XV CLOCKS IN AMERICA 187
XVI WHAT MASSACHUSETTS CONTRIBUTED 202
XVII THE ROMANCE OF THE WATCH 217
XVIII CHRISTOPHER HAS A BIRTHDAY 236
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THOSE MEN--ONE OF THEM TOOK A RING--I SAW HIM" _Frontispiece_
"SO YOU NEVER SAW AN OLD FELLOW LIKE THIS, EH?" _Page_ 24
WHAT WAS IT THAT RENDERED THE FIGURE SO FAMILIAR? " 103
AH, WHAT AN EVENING THE TWO CRONIES HAD TOGETHER
THAT NIGHT " 164
CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
CHAPTER I
A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING
Christopher Mark Antony Burton was a tremendously imposing name to give
a baby. When he lay in his crib, wee and helpless, he looked as if he
might never survive the weight of it. Even later, when he began to
toddle about on his small, unsteady feet, the sonorous pseudonym trailed
in his wake, threatening to drag him down to an early grave.
Nevertheless his father protested against the burden being lightened one
iota. Christopher Mark Antony Burton he had been christened and
Christopher Mark Antony Burton he must remain. Had it not been his
father's, his grandfather's, and his great-grandfather's name before
him; and all his life had not Mr. Burton longed for some one to whom to
pass on the treasure of which he was so proud? And then on a happy day a
son came upon the scene and _presto_, before the boy was an hour old,
the ponderous appellation was clapped on his unlucky head.
Mr. Burton, however, did not consider the child unlucky--not he! To
bestow this signal honor afforded him infinite satisfaction. No gift he
could have granted his heir could, in his opinion, equal--much less
surpass--this one.
He had, to be sure, on the day of the baby's birth, deposited in the
savings bank five hundred dollars to its credit; but what was money when
weighed against being Christopher Mark Antony Burton, the fourth?
And Christopher had thrived despite the fact that life, no respecter of
persons, did not spare him the misfortunes common to the race. He had
whooping cough, measles, and mumps like other children, and when at
length he reached the ripened age of six he was led to school and it was
here, with one swift, leveling blow, that his splendor vanished even as
the grass which in the morning groweth up and at night is cut down, and
withereth.
He issued forth from his home as Christopher Mark Antony Burton and
returned to it shorn of his glories and as plain Chris Burton. Was ever
transformation more complete? Certainly not in the estimation of his
father and mother. But Chris himself was overjoyed at the emancipation.
It seemed as if a ball had been lifted from his foot and left him free
as air. And the wonderful part of it was that the operation had been so
quickly and painlessly accomplished. It had taken a round-faced,
red-haired urchin just about fifteen seconds to sever his bonds.
"Christopher Mark Antony Burton!" jibed he with sardonic glee. "Haw,
haw! Can you beat it? Cut it out, Chris."
Whereupon a group of derisive youngsters had proceeded without further
ado to cut it out.
"Chris Burton! Chris Burton!" they piped, capering gleefully about their
victim.
Christopher's consent to this re-christening was not asked. The name
would have been cut in the same ruthless fashion whether he willed it or
not. Fortunately, however, he welcomed his release, and this cheerful
conformity to public sentiment earned for him at the outset of his
career vast popularity.
"Chris is all right," conceded his judges. "Poor kid! Is it his fault if
they pasted a mile-long label on him?"
Indeed common opinion generally agreed that the unhappy victim of the
Burton honors was far more sinned against than sinning, and his cause
was forthwith taken up with zealous sympathy.
"They didn't do a thing to you, you poor trout, when they wished that
tag on you, did they?" Billie Earnshaw, the leader of the gang, declared
not unkindly. "No matter, old chap! Cheer up! Forget it! We're going
to."
And they did. As completely as if the awful appellation had never
existed it was wiped from the tablets of their memory and Christopher
Mark Antony Burton fourth became Chris Burton--nothing more.
Oh, there were days when the original horror bobbed up. It appeared on
report cards and in school registers traced in the teacher's clear,
painstaking hand: _Christopher Mark Antony Burton_; nevertheless she
never troubled to address him in that fashion. Perhaps she hadn't the
time. Life was a busy enterprise and the days were short. One could not
stop to roll out a name like that unless blessed with leisure.
Accordingly in the schoolroom our hero passed as Burton and on the
ball-field as Chris, and since his existence alternated 'twixt these two
worlds, he was Christopher Mark Antony Burton only at breakfast and at
bed-time--intervals so brief that they were endured with cheerfulness
and complacency.
Therefore having rid himself thus early in his career of a stigma that
threatened to blast his chance for success, the future stretched before
him smooth as a macadam road. Uneventfully he finished the grammar
school and went on into the high school as did other boys of his
acquaintance. He was not, however, a scholar who leaped avidly toward
books. Painfully, reluctantly he trudged his way. Learning came
hard--especially Latin, French, and history. To hold fast a French verb
was for him a thousand times harder than to grip in his clutch a
writhing eel; and as for algebra--well, the unknown quantity was the
only one he was sure of.
Yet notwithstanding his scholastic limitations, he contrived to wriggle
along until at the beginning of his junior year he was whisked away to
the hospital with scarlet fever, after which, amid sage waggings of
their heads, a group of doctors congregated about his bed. He was not to
be alarmed, they said. His eyes were not permanently injured. Yet there
was no denying his illness had seriously weakened them and they must be
given a long vacation. Perhaps six months might do what was
necessary--perhaps, on the other hand, it might take a year. Rest was
the thing needed--absolute rest and protection from the light.
Whereupon, having delivered themselves of this decree, they placed upon
his nose a pair of blue goggles, told him to cheer up, and went their
way.
At first the tragedy on which they commiserated him did not appear to
Christopher very great. He detested books. Now, without effort of his
own, he was to be released from them. It was almost too good to be true.
Had he begged the boon on bended knees, his parents would have denied
it. And now, as if by magic, the favor he sought had been granted
without so much as a word from them. The law had been laid down so
forcefully that neither they nor he dared disobey it.
In fact it was soon apparent they felt vastly sorry on Christopher's
account that the mandate had been pronounced. Everybody did. Ill news
travels as if on wings, and before the boy had been home a day the
entire community was offering him sympathy for a calamity which did not
seem to him any calamity at all.
True, he detested his blue glasses and would gladly have consigned them
to the ash barrel. Still no sky is without shadows; one must take the
cake as well as the frosting. Certainly he found it no cross to rise in
leisurely fashion while the other kids were hiking along to school and
sit down to a hot breakfast cooked especially for him; nor, when the
bells were just about ringing for recitations, could it be considered a
hardship to saunter off for a tramp in the sunshine, with Joffre, his
tireless collie, bounding on before him.
No, his lot was far from an unhappy one. For a week or two he was
entirely content. Of course there was no denying there were moments that
dragged. He couldn't read, and he had always derived keen delight from a
good pirate story. However, people read to him, and that was the next
best thing. Often his father or his mother would toss aside their books
or papers and read aloud to him an entire evening. But the books they
selected were never pirate stories. Instead they were almost always
things that aimed to improve him, and if there was anything Christopher
resented, it was being improved. Therefore while he appreciated the good
intentions of his parents in reading and explaining to him Emerson's
essays, he would as lief have exchanged all of them for a single chapter
of "Treasure Island." But, alas, his father was not of the "Treasure
Island" sort, and neither was his mother. Indeed it is doubtful whether
they would have recognized Silver had they met him in broad daylight, on
the main street. As for himself he missed Silver sadly--Silver,
Deerslayer, and all the rest of his cronies, and before long time began
to hang heavily on his hands.
Elversham was, it is true, a beautiful suburb in which to live. Still,
there wasn't much doing in it. If your day was not filled with school,
baseball, football, or building a radio, how was a chap to fill up his
time? He could, of course, go down to the athletic field and watch the
games, but as he was accustomed to being in the thick of them, he
derived no great pleasure from sitting about on the edges and looking
on, while others fumbled the ball or failed to make a touchdown. What a
pity it was that when he had dropped out of school he had been obliged
to sacrifice his position on the team! Still how could any one be mixed
up in a football tackle if he had to wear blue glasses every minute?
No, for the present he must certainly keep out of athletics. He was, in
fact, pretty well out of everything. When he joined the fellows, it was
only to hear them joshing about some event wholly unintelligible to him.
All their jokes and horse play led back to the classroom until at length
he felt as if he might as well have listened to a lot of jibbering
Chinese as to try to understand their nonsense.
Yes, he was out of it--completely out of it! Gradually the realization
dawned on him. He was out of everything, the only idle person in a
rushing world. When he took a walk, except for the companionship of
Joffre, he went alone. Everybody was too busy to pay any attention to
him. He was bored with his own society--horribly bored.
"Isn't there anything I can do, Dad?" he desperately inquired one
evening, after his mother had all but read him to sleep with the life of
Benjamin Franklin.
"What do you mean, son?" asked Mr. Burton, dropping his paper and
emerging abruptly from Wall Street, his attention arrested more by the
lad's tone than by his words.
"I mean isn't there anything at all I can do? I'm sick to death of
loafing round this house."
"But I thought you were rather pleased to be out of school," Mr. Burton
asserted with surprise.
"I was at first--pleased as Punch; but I'm not now. I'm bored within an
inch of my life. I can't keep tramping round with Joffre from morning to
night, nor is there anywhere to go if I could. Besides, I haven't a soul
to speak to--everybody is studying or else playing football."
"It is hard, Christopher," agreed his mother with instant sympathy. "You
have been very patient."
"So you have, my boy! So you have!" Mr. Burton echoed. "I had no idea,
however, that you were unhappy. Well, well! We must see what can be
done."
He rose and began to pace the floor thoughtfully.
"Now if I could afford it," he went on, "I should pack you off on a trip
round the world. That would not only amuse you royally but afford you a
liberal education into the bargain; but I haven't the money to do that
just now, I'm afraid. Some more modest entertainment must be found. H-m!
I don't suppose as a makeshift you would care to go into the store with
me for a week or two until a better plan can be devised."
The lad's face instantly brightened.
"Yes, I would," he cried. "I'd like it very much." Although the scheme
was not a brilliant one, it was far better than hanging about Elversham
day after day. To go to the city would mean new sights, new sounds, and
doubtless luncheon with his father--a treat to which he had always
looked forward since a small boy.
"Really now!" commented Mr. Burton, beaming down at him. "Well, I am
surprised. I feared you would not even listen to the proposal. So you
like it, eh? Oh, not for long, of course--I understand that; but simply
as a filler."
Christopher was all cordiality.
"It wouldn't be half bad."
"Don't imagine I shall set you to work," continued Mr. Burton hastily.
"I'd rather work if there was anything I could do."
"I am afraid there wouldn't be," was the reply. "Ours is a trade that
has, for the most part, to be learned."
"I suppose so."
"No, I shall not set you to work--or entertain you, either. You will
have to look out for yourself. However, as you say, it may amuse you to
go to the store, and perhaps when you get there you can make some sort
of a niche for yourself. We'll see."
"Certainly there must be errands to run," Christopher suggested.
Mr. Burton eyed the boy pleasantly, but shook his head.
"Even our errands have to be detailed to skilled men--at least, most of
them. Now and then, it is true, there are ordinary messages to be
delivered; but in most cases any packages we send out are too valuable
to be entrusted to boys your age. They might be held up."
"Held up!" repeated Christopher incredulously.
"Surely. Such things have happened," Mr. Burton nodded. "We never feel
safe about sending out valuable goods unless they are well guarded."
"It would be mighty exciting to be held up!" Christopher gasped, his
eyes wide with interest.
"Exciting!" mimicked his father sarcastically. "Exciting! Humph! I guess
you would find it something more than exciting if a group of yeggs
thrust a pistol under your nose. You seem to forget that persons who
hold up a messenger do it to get the goods."
"But they don't always succeed?" came breathlessly from Christopher.
"Not in moving pictures," was the grim retort. "In the movies, somebody
always happens along at the crucial moment, rescues the hero, captures
the villain, and everything is all right. That is the sort of hold-up
you are accustomed to, son. But in real life the villain is a desperate
character armed with a gun that goes off. You forget that."
Christopher looked crestfallen and flushed uncomfortably.
"Perhaps I am shaking your courage a little and you won't be so eager to
go to town with me," jested Mr. Burton.
"On the contrary, the scheme appeals to me more than ever."
"You actually hanker to meet a bandit or two?"
"It would certainly add a thrill to life to encounter a bandit," grinned
Christopher.
"Add a thrill!" Mr. Button sniffed. "Add a thrill! Well, I will tell you
right now that when you feel a desire for a thrill like that coming on,
you can go straight to the movies and indulge it. You shall have no such
thrills at _my_ expense," and without more ado Christopher Mark Antony
Burton, senior, lighted a fresh cigar, took up his paper, and dismissed
the matter.