Christopher and the Clockmakers

by Sara Ware Bassett

As it happened, however, he need have experienced no embarrassment to-day for the fact that fourteen years ago he had entered into this vale of tears was not mentioned. True, his mother did kiss him a trifle more warmly than usual, and an additional salutation, which she instantly repressed, seemed trembling on her tongue. But there was nothing else out of the ordinary.

Therefore he sat down and ate his breakfast with the chagrined conviction that for the first time in history the anniversary to which he had habitually looked forward with such keen pleasure had slipped his parents' memory. It was strange that each of them should have forgotten. Even if his father had been too busy about the shipment of the gems expected from Holland to bear it in mind, one would have thought his mother would have remembered. She was, to be sure, much taken up with doing over the library and fussing about curtains which she declared she never would be able to match. But for all that you would have thought she would recall that May twentieth was coming. It wasn't at all like her to let her own interests crowd out those of her family.

Perhaps they thought he was getting too old for birthdays. That would be a tragedy indeed, since it would mean that he never would have any more presents. Oh, it wasn't likely they thought that! No, the whole thing was just a mistake, and as long as it was Christopher shrank from correcting the error. You couldn't very well shout, "This is my birthday, good people. Any contributions you would like to give me will be gratefully received." Once he would not have hesitated to do this. But now he was older and had more pride.

Therefore he ate his orange and his cereal as serenely as he could, hoping the disappointment he experienced would not be evident in his face. Apparently it was not. With customary impatience Mr. Burton swallowed his coffee and, rising from the table, cautioned his son to hurry up and not keep him waiting; and on hearing this familiar admonition, Christopher's last weak hope that the day was to be different from other days vanished, and he dashed for his hat and coat.

"Good-by, Mother," he called up the stairway.

"Your mother is going into town with us to-day," Mr. Burton explained. "She has some errands to do."

"She didn't say so at breakfast."

"She forgot to, most likely. She was in a good deal of a hurry. Here she comes now. Don't stop to put on your gloves, my dear. You can do it in the car."

Off they went to the station and then into New York they whizzed by train. There was not much opportunity to talk. Christopher's father read the paper, and his mother consumed the time by holding various scraps of gauzy blue stuff up to the light and asking which of them he liked best. Then they bundled into a taxi and riding to the store entered it, where the counterpart of every other day in the year began. And yet, after all, did the day start as other days were wont to do? To begin with, there was his mother who, instead of rolling off downtown to her shopping, as would have been her customary program, alighted from the taxicab with his father and himself. Moreover the interior of the shop did not seem quite the same. Nonsensical as it was to suppose it, there seemed to be in the atmosphere a subtle air of suspense quite new and unusual. Besides that, there were flowers on his father's desk; and what was more surprising, apparently he was the only one to notice these innovations.

Nevertheless he did not speak of them but pulled off his coat and stood for a moment hesitating before going to hunt up McPhearson. It was in his mind to accompany his mother down in the elevator and see her to the door after she should have finished her business. Perhaps she had come to get money for her shopping; or possibly, as she sometimes did, she was going to select a wedding present downstairs. But if any such missions stimulated her she was, to judge by appearances, in no haste to fulfill them; instead she loosened her scarf and sat down as if she had no other aim in the world than to remain all day.