"She's about O. K. now. Running fine—I'm just tinkering the catch on the door, for even Richard Parsons cannot coax things into wearing forever. She'll go home to-day."
There was a sigh from the Scotchman.
"I do believe you're sorry to be done with her," asserted the boy mischievously. A second later, however, he regretted his impulsive jest, for his companion answered gravely:
"I am. I've enjoyed working on her. I'd be far sorrier, though, did I not know she is going where she will be appreciated. The woman that owns her watches over her as if she were a live creature—and indeed she is—almost."
"It's nice to feel she isn't being wasted on some dumbbell, isn't it?" declared Christopher, catching the old man's enthusiasm.
"She's not being wasted. I can answer for that. I know the house where she lives well, for I've been there times without number to regulate clocks. There are some beauties and they have the history of every one of them—the name of the maker, the date when they were made, the place, and all. I like to handle clocks for people like that. It shows they are intelligent and care. Some folks do not know one thing about their clocks. They won't even take the trouble to wind them regularly. Nevertheless they are the first ones to fuss if the poor things fail to keep good time. I wonder how they would like, for example, to have their meals served to them just whenever somebody happened to think of it."
Christopher nodded agreement with the sentiment.
"To be sure," McPhearson continued, "people sometimes own clocks that aren't worth much pains. Still, it's only right to keep them cleaned and help them to do the best they can, even at that. All clocks can't be Tompions, or Grahams, or Quares, any more than we can all be Washingtons and Lincolns. It isn't their fault nor ours."
"You care a lot about clocks, don't you?" meditated Christopher aloud.
"I suppose I do," the old man confessed. "Clocks have come to be almost people to me; in fact, some of them are a good sight better than people. By that, I mean they have finer traits. They go quietly ahead and do their work without bluster or complaint. When they don't it is usually because something's the matter with them. They are patient, faithful, useful, and were they to be taken out of the world they would be terribly missed and would leave it a pretty higgledy-piggledy place."