The flagman croaked gleefully deep down in his throat.
“Zo—but first—I know—the knabelein has a stomach got. All have.”
He rose stiffly and reached back of the stove to where hung his own great bear-coat. From the pocket he brought out a large red apple and handed it to David.
“There, eat. And you shall hear the tale of anodder apple, a Chreestmas apple.”
The flagman tilted back in his chair again and replaced his feet upon the hob. David sat with elbows on knees and ate slowly. There was no sound but the occasional dropping of coals in the stove and the soft, deep guttural of the flagman’s voice. And here is the story as he told it to David—only the broken German accent and the dropping coals are missing.
Once on a time there lived in Germany a little clock-maker by the name of Hermann Joseph. He lived in one little room with a bench for his work, and a chest for his wood, and his tools, and a cupboard for dishes, and a trundle-bed under the bench. Besides these there was a stool, and that was all—excepting the clocks. There were hundreds of clocks: little and big, carved and plain, some with wooden faces and some with porcelain ones—shelf clocks, cuckoo clocks, clocks with chimes and clocks without; and they all hung on the walls, covering them quite up. In front of his one little window there was a little shelf, and on this Hermann put all his best clocks to show the passers-by. Often they would stop and look and some one would cry:
“See, Hermann Joseph has made a new clock. It is finer than any of the rest!”
Then if it happened that anybody was wanting a clock he would come in and buy it.
I said Hermann was a little clock-maker. That was because his back was bent and his legs were crooked, which made him very short and funny to look at. But there was no kinder face than his in all the city, and the children loved him. Whenever a toy was broken or a doll had lost an arm or a leg or an eye its careless mütterchen would carry it straight to Hermann’s little shop.
“The kindlein needs mending,” she would say. “Canst thou do it now for me?”