"Oh, that will be great!" shouted Joe. "I can almost hear Molly and May scream now."
"Let's visit the cuckoo shop," said Jack one afternoon. "And let's try to be there when the cuckoos all come out."
A cuckoo clock
"Well, then, let's go now," said Joe. "It is ten minutes of five. We shall have just time to get there before the clocks begin to strike and the cuckoos begin to call for five o'clock."
So Jack and Joe hurried down the street into the old, old part of the city. They found the little shop just in time. An old man standing in the doorway invited the boys to go in, and of course they accepted.
On the walls around the small room hung many beautiful brown clocks of all sizes. They were very different from American clocks. These clocks looked like tiny Swiss houses or chalets. There was a round clock face in the front of each chalet, and two long swinging arms hanging down below. But the clocks were all saying, tick, tick, tick, tick, just as American clocks do.
"Now watch!" cried Joe. "The doors are beginning to open. Here come the cuckoos."
And sure enough, as the boys stood looking at the clocks, a little door near the top of each swung quickly open and a tiny cuckoo bird stepped out and flapped its wings.