“When I bring you shoes to mend, you shall finish them by my clock, and not by yours.”
“That will I, my good little Arla,” said the cobbler, heartily. “They shall be finished by any clock in town, and five minutes before the hour, or no payment.”
Arla now walked on until she came to the bridge over the river. It was a long, covered bridge, and by the entrance sat the bridge-keeper.
“Do you know, sir,” said she, “that the clock at this end of your bridge does not keep the same time as the one at the other end? They are not so very different, but I have noticed that this one is always done striking at least two minutes before the other begins.”
The bridge-keeper looked at her with one eye, which was all he had.
“You are as wrong as anybody can be,” said he. “I do not say anything about the striking, because my ears are not now good enough to hear the clock at the other end when I am near this one; but I know they both keep the same time. I have often looked at this clock and have then walked to the other end of the bridge, and have found that the clock there was exactly like it.”
Arla looked at the poor old man, whose legs were warmly swaddled on account of his rheumatism, and said:
“But it must take you a good while to walk to the other end of the bridge.”
“Out upon you!” cried the bridge-keeper. “I am not so old as that yet! I can walk there in no time!”
Arla now crossed the bridge and went a short distance along a country road until she came to the great stone house known as Vougereau. This belonged to a rich family who seldom came there, and the place was in charge of an elderly man who was the brother of Arla’s mother. When his niece was shown into a room on the ground floor, which served for his parlor and his office, he was very glad to see her; and while Arla was having something to eat and drink after her walk, the two had a pleasant chat.