"Oh, you wind them now, do you?"
"I certainly do!" affirmed the negro, with no small degree of pride. "Mr. Hawley's been a long time comin' to it, but at last he's let me. Yes, sir! I wind 'em, every one."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. You see, Mr. Hawley ain't so young as he was, an' mor'n that, he's got rheumatism in his arm. So one mornin' he say to me 'Ebenezer,' he say, 'I reckon you'll have to take on the windin' up. My hand is gettin' shaky.' Well, sir, had he given me the management of a railroad I couldn't have been prouder. That's why, when Seventeen begun branchin' out for herself, I was so 'specially upset. I wondered what I'd done to her."
"We'll look and see," McPhearson smiled. "Very likely she's just taken a whim, Ebenezer."
"I hope so—I do indeed, sir."
Following the old butler, Christopher and the Scotchman ascended the stairs until they came to a niche where stood the clock in question.
It was perhaps four feet tall—an exact replica of a long-case clock.
"I never saw such a little grandfather's clock as that," commented Christopher.
"It is a bracelet clock of early Colonial make," McPhearson explained. "Many of them were made in Massachusetts in the early days."