The Clock

by James Lincoln Collier

  I would do anything to get even with him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SO THERE I WAS. Oh, it was as scary as could be. I wished I’d had someone to talk it over with. Sometimes I talked to Robert about it in my head, like he was still alive. I could hear his voice saying that running away would be mighty rough and risky. Then I would realize that Robert was dead and wasn’t saying anything at all and I’d start to cry. After a while I decided not to talk to Robert anymore. Running away from your family was hard, but I had to.

  So that was my plan. It scared me a good deal. For one thing, going off by myself, with nobody for company, was dreadful worrisome. Who would be there to help me if I fell sick? Who’d be there to brace me up when I felt lonely?

  I knew I’d have to be smart about it. A lot of people would be after me. Pa and Ma would want me back, because I was their daughter, and they’d miss me. And of course Pa needed my salary to clear up his debts. Mr. Hoggart would want me back because he had a contract for six months’ work. The justices of the peace would want me back, because girls weren’t supposed to run away.

  How would I do it? Where would I go? It wouldn’t be safe for a girl to travel by herself any distance, into places where she wasn’t known.

  Where was I going to get a suit of boy’s clothes? Actually, all I needed was a pair of trousers and a hat. That’d be enough. But where was Ito get trousers?

  What about Tom Thrush? I wondered: Did he have any extra clothes? I figured he must have at least one extra pair of trousers. The boys were supposed to wash themselves and their clothes now and again. Colonel Humphreys had some kind of rule about that, so as to keep down the diseases and lice. I figured they each had to have at least one extra suit of clothes to wear while the main one was being washed.

  I waited for my chance, and in a couple of days I cornered Tom at five o’clock after work. We waited there in the slubbing room until the others had all gone. Then I said, “Tom, can you keep a secret?”

  “Yes, Miss Annie. I won’t tell nobody.” He squinted at me. “You couldn’t get it out of me with knives.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that. I’d heard Tom squeal pretty loud when Mr. Hoggart walloped him. He wasn’t one for thinking things through before he spoke, and was always likely to let something slip. But I had to chance it. “You promise, Tom.”

  “I swear to it. If I swear to anything, it’s certain.”

  “I’m going to run away.”

  His eyes got wide. “You mean it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t be scairt?”

  “No. Well, a little. But I’m going to do it.” He squinted at me for a minute, thinking—or whatever you would call it, in his case. Then he said, “I’ll go with you, Miss Annie. We’ll run off together.”

  Well, I’d never thought of that, and it gave me a funny feeling. You couldn’t trust Tom as far as you could throw him. He lied all the time, and stole anything he could, and he was likely to get us in trouble. But when the idea sunk in a little, I could see that it might have some advantages. Tom knew how to get around things. He’d spent most of his life looking after himself, and he knew a dreadful lot I didn’t know. Besides, he’d be company. But I decided to be cautious. “I don’t know, Tom. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “There never was a time when I wasn’t in trouble, Miss Annie. I’m used to it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I wasn’t in trouble. It wouldn’t be natural to me.”

  “Well, maybe,” I said.

  “Where was you figurin’ on runnin’ away to?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe to New Haven. Maybe down to New York. Do you think we could find work if we went to New York?”

  “What on earth would you want to work for, Miss Annie? There’s more things lying around the docks than you could ever make off with. There ain’t no point in working.”

  I decided not to argue about that. But I could see that it might be a good idea to run away to New York, if Tom was to come along. He knew all about the place, and we wouldn’t go hungry. “Tom, I can’t go dressed as a girl. I’ve got to get some boys’ clothes. Trousers and a hat would be enough. Can you lend me some?”

  “Could if I was to go naked myself,” he said.

  “You’ve only got one suit of clothes? Just the ones you have on?”

  “What’s the sense of having more? You can’t wear but one pair of trousers and one shirt, can you?”

  “What do you do when you wash them?”

  “Wash them? Why, go naked until they dry.”

  “Don’t you freeze?” I said.

  “Freeze? Who’d be fool enough to wash their clothes in the winter? You’d like to take your death.”

  I decided not to argue with him about that. “Do you know any way to get at least some trousers?

  He gave me a wink. “Don’t you worry none about that, Miss Annie. I’ll get you some trousers.”

  He’d steal them, that was clear. I didn’t like the idea of that very much, but I couldn’t see any way around it. So we shook hands on it.

  We’d have to wait until warm weather came and the ground began to dry up—probably late April or May. That was a good six weeks off. I hated staying in the mill a minute more, much less a whole six weeks. But I wasn’t going to leave until I’d found out about that wool Mr. Hoggart was stealing. I was going to find out about that if I died for it.

  The first thing I had to do was get into that shed in the woods. I had to find out if Mr. Hoggart really was storing wool in it. For once I knew that, I’d be a step along the way to getting him in real trouble. But how was I to get in? The lock on the door was mighty big and strong. There wasn’t any way I could break it off.

  Was there some way to steal the key from Mr. Hoggart? That didn’t seem likely. I didn’t even know where he kept his keys, but I figured he didn’t leave them lying around the mill where anybody could find them. He’d have them tied to his belt, or hidden somewhere. So that didn’t seem likely.

  What about chopping a hole in the back of the cabin? That was possible. I’d chopped enough kindling wood to know how to do it. It wouldn’t take more than five minutes to bust a hole big enough to slide through.

  But, of course, there wouldn’t be any way to cover the hole up afterward. Next time Mr. Hoggart went out there he’d know somebody had found him out, and he’d get the wool out of there mighty quick. Besides, it was risky. You’d make a lot of noise busting a hole in the cabin with an ax. The sound of an ax carried a long way on a still day, even through the woods. Mr. Hoggart might well hear it, and come running.

  Was there any way to pry the cabin up a little so you could peek under the wall? Well, I’d seen men lift up cabins before, and carry them off to a new spot. But it took a fair bunch of them and a few oxen to do it. It didn’t seem likely I could do it all alone.

  And then it came to me; you could dig a little tunnel underneath one of the walls. It didn’t have to be much of a tunnel. All you would have to do was scoop but enough dirt so you could slide through, like a dog under a fence. And if you were small it wouldn’t be much trouble at all. Who did I know who was small? Tom Thrush, that’s who. Once I figured out what I was going to do, and how to do it, I felt a little better.

  It took me two or three days to get a chance to talk to Tom Thrush again, but he finally came up to sweep around the machines—they had to keep the floors clean, for there was the danger of all that greasy wool catching fire. Because the machinery was banging and clanging, I was able to give him a wink, and then whisper to him to meet me up at the end of the mill road, where it turned into the village road. There were trees along there and we could talk without anybody seeing us.

  So, when the five o’clock bell rang I put on my cloak, went on up the mill road, and ducked down inside a cluster of pine trees that grew there. I stood there waiting and by and by Tom came up the mill road, and slipped in among the pines with me. “I hope it ain’t some foolishness, Miss Annie,” he s
aid. “It’s mighty cold to be standing around in the snow for nothin’.”

  “It’s not foolishness,” I said. “I’ve found out a way to get Mr. Hoggart.”

  He gave a suspicious look. “Have you now,” he said.

  “I figured out a way to get into that cabin where he’s got the wool.”

  “That a fact?” he said. He looked upward at the patches of sky you could see around the tops of the pines. “I don’t expect I’m goin’ to be lucky enough to be left out of it?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re the most important one.”

  He went on looking at the sky. “To be honest, Miss Annie, I shouldn’t mind at all if somebody else had the honor. I don’t mind takin’ a backseat at all. Fact is, I’d ruther.”

  “Don’t be such a coward,” I said. “You haven’t even heard what it is. There isn’t any risk to it at all. We’re just going to dig a little trench under the hut, and you could slide in and have a look around.”

  “Yes, I can see where there’s no risk in. that. Not a bit of risk. Why, if Mr. Hoggart chanced to come by just at that moment, we’d just explain that we was out in the woods a-gatherin’ nuts. He’d be bound to swallow that, seein’ as most nearly everybody gathers nuts in March in the middle of the night when it’s pitch dark. He’d be certain to swallow that.”

  “Don’t be silly, Tom. Mr. Hoggart isn’t going to go out there late at night.”

  He stopped looking at the top of the pines and the sky and looked at me. “Well, I tell you, Miss Annie. I’d like to get him, all right. You can believe that. But it ain’t worth gettin’ half kilt for, and maybe the other half as well.”

  “I thought you New York boys were always doing risky things. I’m willing to take the chance, and I’m just a girl. You wouldn’t want anybody to think you were more scared than a girl, would you?”

  “I’ve heard of worse things,” he said. “Like bein’ half kilt.”

  “Tom, you’ve got to do it. It’s our chance to get him.”

  He looked down at the ground, and then up at the pine tops again, and then down at the ground some more. “Just how do you figure this ought to work, then?”

  “Here’s what we’ll do. One night after supper I’ll sneak a shovel and a pick out of our barn and come up to the mill. Then after everybody’s in bed you’ll sneak out. We’ll go on out to that cabin, and dig a little trench under the back wall. It doesn’t need to be more than six or eight inches deep, and a foot wide—maybe a little wider. It wouldn’t take us half an hour to dig that trench. Then you slip inside, I hand you in an oil lamp, you get a look at what’s in there, and then we scoot on out of there. There won’t be anything to it.”

  He licked his lips. “Yes, I can see that there ain’t anything to it. Any fool can dig a trench in frozen dirt in the pitch dark. Especially when you have a lot of nice warm snow to tramp around on while yer doin’ it.”

  I reached out and shook his hand. “I knew I could count on you, Tom,” I said. “Don’t forget to bring an oil lamp.”

  He’d do it. He didn’t want to, but he would. So that was set. When was I to do it? There wasn’t any point in waiting, just so long as we didn’t have bad weather. I waited a couple of days and then I told Tom we would do it that night. All he had to do was meet me at ten o’clock by the back of the mill, in the shadows, where nobody could see us from the boys’ lodging house, or the other mill.

  The one thing about that blame clock was that I could count on Ma and Pa and George going to bed at eight. I slipped on up to the loft then, too, and lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling and feeling scared. It wasn’t safe, no matter what I’d told Tom. A thousand things could go wrong.

  But I was determined to do it. I was determined to get even with Mr. Hoggart for what he’d done to Robert, and determined to get out of the mill and see if I couldn’t make a life for myself that suited me more than the one Pa had planned for me.

  Finally, when I figured Pa and Ma and George were asleep, I slipped out of bed, climbed down the ladder from the loft, and stood for a minute in the parlor, listening. There was no sound; they were asleep. There was enough light from the coals of the fire so I could see the clock. It was after nine. I slipped out of the house, back to the barn. The chickens clucked at me softly. “Shush,” I whispered. I collected a shovel and a pick, and carrying one over each shoulder so they wouldn’t clink together, I went on down our lane as quick as I could. Then I walked to the mill, keeping close to the trees along the road, so as to be in the shadows. In twenty minutes I was down behind the back of the mill. I waited in the shadows, looking out at the snowy field and the woods beyond. The sky was filled with patches of clouds racing for dear life from west to east, so that at one moment the moon was shining bright upon the snowy field and the woods behind the mill, and the next moment it blinked out, so that the snow was dark gray and the woods just a blotch of black at the end of the view.

  By and by I heard a sound behind me. I jumped around. It was Tom, creeping along the side of the mill in the shadows, carrying an oil lamp. “Tom,” I whispered. “Why’d you come that way?”

  “I didn’t prize crossin’ that field any more than I had to. I come around behind the mill.”

  He came up beside me. “We’re going to have to cross that field sooner or later,” I said.

  He looked up at the sky, and so did I. “We’d best wait until the moon is covered,” I said, “and then make a run for it. What do you think?”

  “If you want to know what I think, why, it’d be to get back into our beds as quick as possible.”

  “Come on, Tom. If we make a run for it when the moon’s covered, it’ll be safe as church. Here, you take the shovel, I’ll carry the pick.”

  “As safe as church if it was filled with lions and on fire,” he said. But he took the shovel. We stood by the corner of the mill in the dark and waited. A couple of small clouds came and went over the moon, but we could see that they wouldn’t last long enough to cover us while we crossed the open field of snow. We waited some more, and then there came a long cloud, miles long, I judged. Its edge touched the moon, and the moon dimmed. “Come on, Tom,” I said. I broke out of the shadow of the mill and began to run across the field, and in a moment I heard Tom running along behind me. He was scared, all right; but he was more scared of being left alone in the dark by the mill. To tell the truth, I was mighty scared myself. It was a lot darker when the moon was covered, but it ·wasn’t anywhere near pitch dark. Anyone standing in the mill or up in the boys’ lodging house who happened to look out would see us running across that field. They wouldn’t be able to tell who it was; they might even think it was animals—deer, or sheep, maybe. But they’d see us, all right.

  We went on running. My breath was beginning to come rough in my throat. We ran on, and in a minute we came to the edge of the woods, and plunged in. We stopped to catch our breath, and looked back across the field. Up in the boys’ lodging house a little light was moving slowly from window to window across the length of the building. “What’s that, Tom?”

  “The watchman. He goes around sometimes just to check on the boys.”

  “Won’t he see you’re not there?”

  “No,” Tom said. “The boys sleep three and four to a bed, jumbled up like puppies. You couldn’t tell one from the other.”

  “He might count them.”

  “Not him,” Tom said. “He couldn’t count over ten. Once he runs out of fingers he’s stuck. Why, I can count higher than he can. I counted near up to one hundred once, and would have got there, too, but I couldn’t remember what come after thirty-nine.

  The light came to the end of the lodging house and disappeared. “Let’s find the cabin,” I said. We turned, and began to make our way through the woods. It was a good deal darker among the trees. When the moon was uncovered, a fair amount of light shone down through the branches, and we could make the trunks and branches out against the snow. But when a cloud passed over, it got so dark that we c
ouldn’t see anything unless we were right on top of it. We had to grope forward with our hands.

  Going along this way, we were bound to get off the track, and we must have circled past that cabin twice before we spotted it. But finally, when the moonlight suddenly came clear, we saw it off to our right, a black chunk in the trees. We scooted for it, and in a minute we were crouched down beside it.

  The first thing we did was to check the door to see if by chance it was unlocked. We lit the lamp, and held it up so we could see. The flame fluttered in the breeze, making the shadows jump and leap. The door was locked tight. We would have to dig.

  We slipped around to the back wall. We could have dug under the front wall by the door just as well, or the side walls too. But I figured Mr. Hoggart was a lot less likely to go around behind the cabin next time he came out, and wouldn’t notice any loose dirt.

  We set to work. Tom swung the pick, breaking the frozen earth loose, and then I shoveled it off to one side, being careful to keep it in a neat pile so I could shovel it all back in place when we were done. It was hard work, especially for Tom, who had to hold the pick handle in his good hand and sort of guide it with the stump. After a bit we began to sweat, even in the cold. Every few minutes we stopped and listened, just to make sure nobody was coming through the woods. Once we heard a loud scuffling right near to us, and we jumped. But it was only an owl fluttering through the woods after his supper.

  Finally, we got enough of a trench scooped out behind the cabin for Tom to lie in. Then we began to work on the dirt floor to the cabin. This was the hard part, for Tom had to swing the pick sideways to poke it under the bottom of the wall, and then I had to scoop the dirt out from the inside. We were mighty sweaty by this time, and I knew I’d have to dry myself off later, if I wasn’t to shiver all night when I was trying to sleep.

  After a while we finally got enough of a trench dug. Tom lay down in it on his stomach, head first, and wiggled and squiggled his way forward. His head went under the wall, and then his back, and finally only his legs, kicking like a frog’s legs, were sticking out. Then they disappeared.