The Clock

by James Lincoln Collier

  “He doesn’t know you already did it.”

  “No, I don’t guess he figures I’d have done that. There wouldn’t be any reason for a tally boy to calculate that. I wouldn’t have done it either, but I just happened to notice something in the figures one day that struck me curious.”

  “But you can’t be carrying and hauling things,” I said. “You’ll fall and hurt yourself sooner or later.” “I don’t guess he’d mind that very much.” I thought a minute. “Did you tell your pa?”

  “Yes. He went down to the mill and spoke to Mr. Hoggart. He told Pa I’d made a lot of mistakes in the tally and wasn’t up to the job.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said angrily.

  “Shush, keep your voice down, Annie.”

  “But it is a lie. Did your pa believe it?”

  “He said he didn’t,” Robert said. “He said he trusted my word. But I don’t know. Of course Mr. Hoggart wants people to believe that I’ve been making mistakes in the tally, in case I should ever tell somebody about it. He wants to be able to say that I wasn’t accurate in my figures, and nobody should believe anything I say.”

  “But we know he’s stealing. You did the calculations.”

  Robert shrugged. “That isn’t any good anymore. He has all the old tally sheets. Who knows how he’s changed them? And he’ll make sure that I don’t see any more tally sheets ever again.”

  I winced. “I hate him. I hate him so.” We started walking again. “Robert, we have to prove that he’s stealing wool. If we could prove it, he’d lose his situation and we’d have a different overseer.”

  Robert shook his head. “I’m not sure, Annie. Maybe it would be best to let things lie. We might just end up worse off.”

  “But you can’t go on this way. You’re bound to get hurt sooner or later.”

  “I have to wait it out for a while. I have to see how things go. Maybe something will come up.”

  “What if nothing does come up?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll have to quit and go someplace else.”

  That shocked me. I looked at him. “Go someplace else?”

  “There’s nothing for me here in Humphreysville but the mill.”

  “What about apprenticing to someone? Or getting a job in the village store?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve thought about all those things, Annie. As far as the village store is concerned, Abel Fitch has got two sons coming along, and has all the help he needs at home. And who would I apprentice to? I’m not fit to work as a wheelwright for Mr. Brown, or as a gunsmith for Mr. Stock. What else is there? No, if I can’t work at the mill I’ll have to leave Humphreysville. Maybe go to New Haven, where there’s plenty of shop work. Maybe I could apprentice to an apothecary.”

  Hearing that made me go cold all over. I’d always thought that Robert would be here. It never before crossed my mind that he might go away. What would I do? “If you go, I’ll go with you, Robert.”

  He grinned at me. “I don’t know what your ma would say about that, Annie.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll run away. I’ll get a job in a mill somewhere and study when I can and get to be a schoolteacher.”

  Robert shook his head. “Let’s see how things go,” he said. Then we came to his house and he went in with his family to have supper.

  ******

  I had to talk to somebody about it, and I decided to tell Hetty Brown. Her house was on the village road on the other side of the village green near the mill. It wasn’t much out of my way, and sometimes I walked home with her, and had a glass of cider before I went on home myself. We left together on Monday at five o’clock, and as soon as we were clear of the mill I said, “Hetty, if I tell you a secret will you promise not to tell?”

  “I promise. I won’t tell.”

  “Know why Robert isn’t tally boy anymore? It’s because Robert and I caught Mr. Hoggart stealing wool. Robert already knew he was doing it, because the tally sheets didn’t come out right. Then I went to ask him not to dock my pay for being late, and there he was in the carding room, filling a bag with wool.”

  She gave me a kind of scared look. “Are you sure?”

  “Certain of it. The tally sheets have been coming up short for months, Robert says. And then we caught him. He doesn’t want Robert to be tally boy anymore. He’s got to do lifting and hauling, and he’s bound to hurt himself.” It made me feel a lot better to have somebody to tell it to. “But you mustn’t tell anybody.”

  “I promise.”

  “Not even your pa.”

  But Hetty was bound to look on the best side of it. “Maybe he doesn’t think you know. Maybe he just decided to give Robert a different job for some reason.”

  “I wish that was true.”

  “Maybe you can do something about it,” Hetty said.

  “He said if I was friendly to him he might make me lamp girl.”

  “See?” Hetty said. “He isn’t so mad at you after all.”

  I frowned. “I couldn’t be friendly to him if I tried. I hate him.”

  “You shouldn’t hate anyone,” Hetty said.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. Look what he did to Tom Thrush just for gossiping a little. And now he’s trying to hurt Robert.”

  I looked at her. “What are we going to do?”

  She took hold of my hand and we stopped in the road, facing each other. “I’ll tell my pa,” she said.

  “No, don’t.” I said. “You promised. We don’t have any proof.”

  She thought for a minute. “How would you get proof?”

  I wiped my eyes. “If we could find out what he does with the wool. He has to hide it someplace,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t he try to sell it?” Hetty asked.

  “Well, he would, we figure. But he wouldn’t go out and sell a bagful every few days. He’d save it up until he had a wagon load, and then slip away with it at night and sell it a long way from here. It must be stored someplace.”

  “All you have to do, then, is find where he stores it.”

  “It wouldn’t be so easy. How would you do it?”

  “You could think of a way,” Hetty said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE FIRST THING I had to do was find out where Mr. Hoggart was hiding the wool. That wasn’t going to be the easiest thing, for now that we were supposed to be running on clock time on the farm, Pa kept a good eye put for when I was supposed to be home from the mill in the evenings. I wasn’t going to have much of a chance to wait around after the mill closed and spy on Mr. Hoggart.

  Where was he hiding the wool? How did he carry it out of the mill without being seen? When did he do it? Then I remembered something that Tom Thrush had said, about Mr. Hoggart not going to church on Sunday with the boys. What was that all about? I bided my time, and a couple of days later, just after the noon bell rang and Tom was due to come along with our dinnertime tea, I slipped out of the slubbing room, down the stairs, and met Tom just as he was about to come up.

  “Tom, what was that you said about Mr. Hoggart ducking out of church every Sunday?”

  “Oh, he ducks out all right, regular as clockwork. He sees the boys in, and stands in the back until everybody’s settled down. Then he slips out and don’t turn up again until service is near finished.”

  I dropped my voice down a little. “Tom, I think I’ve got a way to get Mr. Hoggart.”

  He squinted his eyes at me. “I’m going to kill him when I get the chance.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said. “He’s stealing wool out of the mill. If we catch him at it, it’ll go hard on him.”

  He stared at me. “How do you know that?”

  “I know. He comes over here on Sunday when the boys are in church and steals it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure as I can be. We have to catch him at it, though.”

  He thought about that. “If you already know it, why do we have to catch him at it?”

  “We have to prove it. We have to find
out where he takes it, so we can show Colonel Humphreys. He’s bound to discharge Mr. Hoggart when he finds out. He might even go to jail.”

  Tom smiled. “Might he?”

  “He probably would. But we have to catch him first. Somebody’s got to slip in here one Sunday and spy on him.”

  Tom stopped smiling, and frowned.

  “Now, what darn fool do you suppose is goin’ to take a risk like that?”

  “I thought you said you’d like to kill him.”

  “Killin’ is one thing. Spyin’ on him when he’s alive and could kick your ribs in is another.”

  “I didn’t think you were such a coward,” I said.

  He stopped sweeping and blinked at me. Then he said, “If you was to do it, how would you do it?”

  “Why, duck behind a tree when Mr. Hoggart herded the boys off for church service, the way you always do. Then slip up here into the mill and watch to see if he comes up to the carding room with a sack. That’s easy enough, isn’t it?”

  “You think he’d go to jail?”

  “He might,” I said.

  Tom began to whistle. Then he went on up the stairs with the tea bucket, and I went on up after him. Well, I didn’t know if he’d do it, or wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t going to promise anything. I’d just have to wait to find out.

  I didn’t have a chance to talk to Robert until Sunday service. Mr. Hoggart was keeping him busy packing yarn and loading it to be shipped out, and I never saw Robert until Sunday. But on Sunday I told him.

  We had two services, a morning service and an afternoon one. Between them we had a big Sunday dinner. All of us who had to travel some distance carried big dinner baskets and ate together.

  During the good weather we generally ate Sunday dinner outside, sitting under trees, or on the stone walls. But now it had come late fall, and the air was getting chill, we ate in the carriage shed on the trestle tables the men would set up after the morning service. The women would all bring food from home—pieces of roast pork, big pots of baked beans, johnnycake, fried squash, jellies, pickles. It was mighty pleasant sitting down to dinner with so many together in that big shed, the chickens pecking around for bits of corn bread that were dropped, and the dogs snoozing by the table.

  I couldn’t talk to Robert until we were done eating. Then we went outside and sat on a stone wall, the way we usually did. Robert looked tired and pale. Mr. Hoggart was wearing him out.

  “Robert, I know how Mr. Hoggart is stealing the wool. He does it on Sunday, when everybody’s at church service.”

  He looked at me. “How do you know that?”

  “He doesn’t always stay at service. Tom Thrush told me. He herds the boys over to our church, and then he slips off like he’s going to the Episcopal Church. I’m sure he goes back to the mill and takes some wool then.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “I aim to find out,” I said.

  He frowned down at the dead grass. “You’re going to get yourself in a peck of trouble.”

  “I’ll be careful. Anyway, I’m not going to do it myself. I talked Tom Thrush into doing it. Maybe.”

  “I wish you’d drop it, Annie.”

  “I can’t. We have to get rid of him.”

  ******

  On Monday, just after breakfast, Tom Thrush came idling by, pushing the broom with his bad hand. He began to sweep around my machine. “I done it, Miss Annie,” he said. “I done it just like you said. I seen him do it.”

  I was excited. I wished I could run out of there; sit down with Tom and hear all about it. “What did he do? How did he do it?”

  “Shush,” he said.

  I lowered my voice. “Tell me.”

  “Well, I slipped behind a tree, the way I always done, and as soon as they was safe inside the church I ran on back to the mill, and hid out in the slubbing room in the shadows behind the machines.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Not a bit of it. He don’t scare me.”

  “It would have scared me,” I said. “Then what?”

  “Well, I waited, and by and by I heard footsteps on the stairs a-headin’ for the carding room. Oh, that was mighty scary.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t afraid of Mr. Hoggart.”

  “Oh, what I meant to say was, it just gave me a start when he come along sudden like that. I wasn’t what you would call scairt. It just gave me a start.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “So I set there, a-waitin’, and after a bit I heard him shufflin’ and bumpin’ around in that there carding room, like he was loadin’ up a bag of wool.”

  “And you crept over to the door and peeked, through the crack,” I said.

  Tom blinked. “What kind of a blame fool do you think I am? I was shakin’ enough just crouched down by the machines.”

  That worried me. It wasn’t going to be much use if he didn’t see who was in that carding room. “I thought you said you weren’t scared, only got a little start.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s about the size of it. I wasn’t scairt, that wasn’t it at all. Just nerved up a little.”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “Then what?”

  “Well, he went on bangin’ and bumpin’ around in there for a while, and then I heard his footsteps goin’ on down the stairs.”

  “And you jumped out and followed him to see where he went.”

  Tom blinked again. “Why, Miss Annie, what on earth are you thinkin’ of? I could hardly stand up, my legs was so trembly, to say nothin’ of followin’ him anywheres.”

  It had all been a waste.

  “So you don’t know for sure that it was him?”

  He blinked one more time. “Why, Miss Annie, who do you suppose it was?”

  That was true enough—it had to be him. Nobody else would have dared to steal anything from there. But it wasn’t any use—I had to know for sure, and I had to know where he was hiding the wool once he took it out of the mill. “Well, Tom, that’s a mighty big help anyway. I expect we’ll get him sooner or later.”

  I knew now that I would have to do it myself. I should have known that Tom would mess it up some way. He’d spent all of his life being whipped and shouted at, and pushed here and there, and it had taken a lot of the heart out of him. He wanted to kill Mr. Hoggart—dreamed about it half the day, I reckoned—but it wasn’t likely he’d actually do it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE NEXT SUNDAY the first snow came, light flakes dancing down onto the hard, dry ground. We walked to church with it blowing in our faces. “It’s going to pile up,” George said. “I can feel it.”

  “What we need is a sleigh,” Pa suddenly said. “Go to church in style and comfort.”

  Ma gave him a look. “Best to get a horse first, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Yes,” Pa said. “Now that you mention it, I’ve got my eye on one. Edmund Wilkins has a fine animal he wants to sell. I think I might just do it. A first-rate saddle horse.”

  I didn’t pay any attention. That was just Pa talking. We’d walked to church through snow and rain and heat and cold all my life and it didn’t seem likely it would ever be any different. I looked straight out at the snow dancing down. I liked it when the first snow came. Winter was hard, what with the cold coming through the walls of the house—so that you’d only be warm if you sat close to the fire—and traipsing around outside with your shoes wet through to the skin, and your hands red and chilled. But the first snow was always pretty. As soon as it piled up enough we’d get out sleds and go up the hill behind the Bronsons’ house to play Running the Gauntlet. Some of us would go up top with the sleds and come down lickety-split, skidding and sliding this way and that. The rest of us would line up along the way with sticks, and try to tip the sleds over as they came shooting by. I liked it when the first snow came.

  ******

  It snowed right on through the morning, but it began to taper off around noon, when we were all gathered in the church barn eating our
dinners, and by the time the second service ended it had stopped snowing. But it had come down hard, and there was a good foot of snow on the ground, and drifts two feet deep in places. We stood out front of the church looking at it, nothing but white on the fields as far as we could see, crisscrossed with stone walls. Here and there was a piece of woods, fat black lines against the snow. Dusk was coming and the color was going out of the world, leaving it all black and white. “I don’t see any point in Annie’s trudging home through his now and turning around tomorrow morning to go through it again to get to the mill,” Ma said. “Why don’t you spend the night at Hetty Brown’s?”

  Well, I liked that idea. But the Browns had already started off for home, so I said good-bye and set off after them, going as quick as I could up the road in hopes of catching up with them. It was getting pretty dark now, but some horses had gone along the road, and a couple of sleighs, as well as people walking, and the snow had got packed down some, and it was easy enough going. Up ahead I could see little bits of light coming from the mills and the lodging houses, and beyond that other bits of light from the houses around the village green. I kept on walking, and by and by I came to where the mill road turned off, to run alongside the creek to the two mills facing each other on the banks.

  Something flashed across my mind, and I stopped walking. I looked down the mill road, taking it all in—the snowy mill road with a couple of lines of footprints going along it, the river black as tar, and the dark mills, silent except for the creaking and groaning of the waterwheels.

  My heart began to beat fast. How much time did I have? The Browns didn’t know I was supposed to be catching up with them. They wouldn’t think anything if I was a little late getting there, for they weren’t expecting me anyway. I took a deep breath, and then I began to trot down the mill road toward the mill. In a minute I came up to the front of the mill. I dashed around the side, heading toward the back. At the corner, right near the long stairs coming down the back, I stopped and looked out. Out back was the mill woodlot. Between the mill and the woodlot was a meadow about a hundred yards across. The meadow was a white blanket. It was untouched, except for a path of footprints running through the snow out to the woodlot. Mr. Hoggart had been out there at least twice, as much as I could tell from the footprints in the dusk.