# The Day the Clock Was Set Ahead

Extracted from McCall's Magazine, 1919 March, pp. 7, 50, 53, 54. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
The Day the Clock Was Set Ahead
By Jennette Lee
ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT K. RYLAND
MRS. CYRUS TRUEFOOT sat by the window shelling peas. She was a tall, fair woman with faded blue eyes and a little droop to the corners of her mouth that made her face, as it bent above the peas in her lap, seem meek and subdued. But when the eyes raised themselves swiftly to the clock it was evident that the face was critical as well as meek. A faint anxious line came between her eyes as she looked at the clock and her fingers hurried.
The clock pointed to twenty minutes to eleven.
A step sounded on the stone door-step outside. She started. A soft dull color came flooding into her sagging face. Her eyes, fixed on the peas, did not look up. Her fingers moved with steady swiftness, flashing at the peas and back.
Cyrus Truefoot, in the doorway, did not glance at her. He crossed to a desk on the other side of the room and sat down, reaching for a pen. For a few minutes there was only the sound of his heavy-moving pen and the soft rustle of pea-pods. Then he folded the letter and stamped it.
“Where is Asa?” he asked over his shoulder.
She gave a little jump that became a half startled, placating smile as she looked up.
“Why, I don't know—just where he is,” she said. It seemed to her that the clock was ticking very loud.
“I want he should drive over to the station and meet Ellen when she comes,” said the man. He got up, taking the letter from the desk.
His wife's eyes followed him across the room. He was tall and strongly built and he carried himself with an air of authority.
“Aren't you going to use the horses for the oats?” she asked.
“No.” His hand, on the catch of the screen-door, paused. “You tell Asa—”
He lifted his eyes to the clock and stopped—his hand dropped from the door.
“Who—!” He pulled his watch from its fob pocket and looked at it sharply, and again at the clock.
“Who's been meddling with that clock!” he said. She glanced at it meekly—as if she saw the clock for the first time. She hesitated a minute.
I GUESS maybe Asa turned it ahead.” She gathered up the pea-pods in her apron as if for flight. But a figure moving across the open window beside her caught her eye and she sank back in her chair, glancing almost breathless, it seemed, at the screen-door.
The face outside looking in and smiling was a little blur of haze to her. Something clouded her gaze.
The boy flung open the door and came in. He looked quickly at his father.
“Say, Father—!” He stopped.
The man, with the open-faced watch in his hand, motioned to the clock.
It pointed to five minutes to eleven.
“Did you—?” He moved the watch sternly. The hand holding it trembled a little.
The boy's glance flashed to the clock and then to his father's set face. But it did not lose its smiling, unflinching confidence.
“I turned it ahead—yes, sir—standard time. I thought maybe you'd forgotten.” He spoke easily, almost defiantly. But the brightness in his face flushed clearly. He did not look at his mother.
Her fingers were fussing at the empty pods, picking them up and crushing the juicy shells with tense grip. Her eyes were looking down. The man glanced at her sharply. He looked back to the boy. There was something almost contemptuous in his gaze.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to touch things that don't belong to you!” He spoke as if to a child. But the eyes that flashed back a look of watchfulness were on a level with his own.
“I didn't suppose you wanted to be an hour behind everyone else,” said the boy. “I thought you'd just—forgot.” But he faltered a little at the last word. His father's authoritative eye was on him, and a year in college had not made him forget that his father's word was law.
The woman by the window stirred slightly.
“I don't think he meant any harm, Cyrus—” He silenced her with a gesture. His glance was on the boy.
“If I choose to keep the right time, that's my affair. Do you understand!” The boy bit his lip. Then the habit of years asserted itself.
“Yes, Father.”
The man nodded. “Just because a few folks are so lazy that before they can get out of bed they have to fool themselves with the clock—that's no reason why I should be always chopping and changing, is it!” Something in the boy's quiet gaze seemed to nettle him—something almost like a smile that lurked in it as if his father seemed to him a little absurd. The man's face flushed dully. He glanced at the clock—almost with a look of veneration it seemed.
“That clock was running before you or me, or anybody that's living now, was born!” he said solemnly. “And years before that.... It is a tradition in our family that it shall never be allowed to run down.” The boy stirred, as if something restive awoke in him.
“Your great grandfather, Asa Truefoot, the one you are named after, bought it and wound it up and set it going for the first time. And it has never stopped since!” The old man stood gazing at the brass face.
The boy's look stole to the clock almost sullenly. Something of the veneration in his father's face seemed to pass to his—but not quite. He straightened himself.
“You can turn it back any time you want to,” he said.
“You can not turn back a clock like that!” replied his father.
The woman gathered up her apron of pea-pods and stole from the room. As if with her going the two faced each other a little more firmly.
“It's right with the rest of the world anyway,” muttered the boy.
“Don't answer back!” said his father sharply. “When you are older you will have more sense!”
The boy shrugged his shoulders—almost imperceptibly. He did not mean to shrug them. He did not want to irritate his father. Especially this morning he wanted not to irritate him. He had come in, glowing with dreams, to ask something of him. And now the world seemed tumbling and everything he wanted in it was tumbling about his ears.
His father glanced at the clock. “I want you to drive over to the twelve o'clock train to meet your sister when she comes.” He spoke quietly as if nothing untoward had passed between them. But his face was white, and it looked a little tired the boy thought as he glanced at it quickly. Perhaps after all he might speak now—and have it over with....
“I wanted to ask you something, Father—?”
“Well?” A certain benignity returned to the tone.
“I know you don't want me to enlist,” he hurried on.
“Not unless you are drafted,” corrected his father.
“And they won't draft me till I'm eighteen—so of course that doesn't mean anything!” He spoke a little impatiently as if the subterfuge irritated him. Then his voice became conciliating again.
Illustration: High above her hovered a dot that swung and turned in hesitating circles and came nearer the ground.... She bent above him and scanned the face, and her hands loosened the wet clothing
“But I want to do something else—I'd like to leave college if you don't mind, sir, and begin my life work now.” He spoke with a kind of wistful firmness. But he stopped, taking breath. His father's face smiled a little coldly.
“What do you propose to do?” he asked.
The boy's glance sought the window. Great clouds were sailing by outside in the June sky. The dazzling light seemed to touch his spirit. He drew himself up.
“I want to learn to fly,” he said simply.
His father was silent. The clock ticked very loud.
“I don't mean just for the war,” went on the youth eagerly. He hurried a little. “I mean—forever! After the war is over. There will be flying things to do—all over the world. I want to be an airman, Father!” His voice rose with a lilt. He seemed to be rapt in a vision....
The clock ticked another round,
Then his father's voice broke it.
“You'd better hurry or you'll be late for the train,” he said casually.
The boy sailed slowly down from the clouds—and blinked.
“May I, sir?”
“Go to the train? Yes!” The man laughed grimly.
“May I learn to fly?” The boy's hands were clenched at
is sides,
YOU certainly may not!” said his father. He paused a moment as if wrestling with something. “When your sister left home I kept still and let her go and said nothing—”
“She was twenty-one!” broke in the boy.
“Your mother has missed her terrible,” said his father rebukingly.
“Mother's a strong, hearty woman!”
“She's strong maybe. I didn't say she'd give out, did I? But she misses Ellen sorely. I don't know where you both got such notions! Not from me, I hope! I want you to understand once for all—You will stay in college until you graduate—if you are not drafted. Then I expect you to come back here and run the farm as I have done. There's more than one way to serve your country. You'll help the country to eat.... Everyone of us Truefoots has left the farm a little better than he found it. I shall leave you a better farm than my father left me.” He said it with proud consciousness of merit.
“Grandfather was something besides a farmer,” muttered the boy.
“He was Judge of the Superior Court, yes. But he did not leave the farm.”
“And his father was Governor,” persisted Asa.
THE man's face flushed as if the boy were covertly accusing him of failure. “They took what came to them,” he said sternly. “The honor sought them out. They didn't go highfalutin' around, flying off to the ends ef the earth.”
A little gleam came to the boy's face and he laughed out suddenly.
“I'll bet you if great-grandfather Truefoot was alive to-day he'd be flying over the house this minute!” He said triumphantly. He laughed again.
“Be quiet!” said his father sternly. “Don't you know better than to speak like that of—of—of the dead!” he finished lamely. He was annoyed that he could not find a better word to end with. He walked with slow dignity to the clock and opened the long narrow door where the pendulum swung. It was as if he opened a shrine. As he opened it the clock began to strike. He reached out a hand to the pendulum and touched it reverently. It quivered through its slender length and remained motionless. The striking ceased. He closed the door and faced his son, who was watching with curious, fascinated gaze.
“In an hour I shall start it again and set it right,” he said. “Now hurry or you'll be late for the train!”
Cyrus Truefoot passed through the kitchen. He still held the letter in his hand. “You tell Asa I want he should mail that when he goes by the office.” He laid it on the table.
“Don't you need the horses for the oats?” she asked timidly. “Ellen can come in the stage all right.”
“She's not going to come in the stage!” retorted 'the man. “I'm not going to have her traveling up here in all that dust! We've always met our folks at the depot. I reckon we can yet for awhile. Where are my gloves?”
He stepped to the door. Baxter, the hired-man was crossing the yard.
“You catch the steers and yoke 'em up,” called out Cyrus,
Through the window Susan watched them drive away slowly. Cyrus had taken the whip and walked beside the steers. Baxter, riding on the end of the hay-rick, was swinging his feet as the cart bounced and jolted along.
Susan Truefoot sighed a little, watching the tall determined figure and the slow-moving team. She wished Cyrus would get an extra pair of horses or a tractor-machine. No one else in Camden County used oxen now.
The little line between her eyes deepened as she brought out the molding-board.... Cyrus was a kind man if you did what he wanted. Only it was hard sometimes to make the children understand that Cyrus was always right.
She lifted the towel from the pan of bread by the stove and touched it lightly with her finger. It gave back a resilient lightness, and she lifted the pan and turned the puffy, yeasty mass onto the molding-board that she had dusted with its light drift of flour. The spreading dough ran quickly to the edge of the flour and she caught it up and kneaded it in with a quick turn of her wrist. Her thoughtful eye followed the yeasty mass, and one hand drifted flour on the board while the other whirled and turned the dough and worked the resisting bubbles to the surface. One large one spread and swelled in a filmy blob. Her fingers pressed it gently. It gave with a little pop and was gone. Susan's fingers molded the place to smoothness.... The children were a little like that, she thought—full of chaos and yeasty bubbling—and Cyrus was hard! She broke the mass apart, pulling it into four shapeless lumps—one a little smaller than the rest, to make into dumplings for the pot-pie. Ellen was fond of her dumplings. And she would be here in time for dinner.... There had been no fuss when Ellen rebelled—the day she was twenty-one. She had only packed her bag and walked quietly down the path to the gate.... She had told Susan that morning while they washed the dishes—
“I am going to be a nurse, Mother. While the war lasts I must be in it. I can not stay here washing dishes—as if men were not dying over there!”... Yes, Susan understood. Her heart had leaped as it followed the girl down the path to the gate. And it beat painfully in little thuds while she watched Cyrus read the note Ellen had left on his desk. For a few minutes he had sat silent, drumming his fingers on the desk and looking out of the window. Then he got up brusquely.
“Dinner ready?” he asked.
That was all the reference Cyrus ever made to his daughter's assertion of her will. And when she came home at Christmas he sent the sleigh to meet her. But Susan knew he had never forgiven Ellen. And she could easily surmise that when his will came to be read there would be no portion in it for Ellen.
She molded the last loaf and placed it in its tin and looked down at the three loaves, each molded to elastic firmness and half-filling the pan. In an hour they would be over the top!
The boy and girl drove slowly behind the colts along the pine-strewn road. She had taken off her hat, and the shadows touched her face lightly. The face was quiet. But the eyes laughed a little, and the mouth and the chin beneath it had a firmly-rounded line. It was Susan's face, but younger and facing toward life—instead of toward Cyrus.
The boy flung his arm affectionately across the back of the seat. “My! But it's good to get you home!” he said.
“What is the matter?” She faced him.
“Oh, nothing.” His foot kicked a little at the whip-socket. “Only I wanted to fly.” She stared,
“Fly—?”
“Airplane!” He lifted a sweeping hand.
Her puzzled look broke. Then she laughed. The little tears gathered in her eyes and gleamed at him in a shining smile.
“Poor Dad!” she said. He nodded glumly.
“He wants me to raise oats. But I'm going to fly some day, you know.”
All about them the pine-trees gave out the fresh, pungent smell of warmth. And somewhere in the green tops a bird sang a little, as if its morning song haunted it. The girl lifted her face to it.
“Oh, it is so good to be here!” she said softly, “away from the bandages and the ether-cones!”
“But you're going back!” said the boy half-enviously.
“Of course! I couldn't keep away—even if I wanted to!”
They faced each other. And their faces in the pine-shadows had the same look—of waiting intentness.... So a strung bow seems to quiver in the archer's hand.
The boy put out a hand, half-groping. It clenched itself.
“I'll have to wait, I suppose. But not a day after I'm twenty-one!”
“Of course not!” They understood each other. Neither of them could yield to Cyrus driving his steers toward the oat-field.
The boy's grip on the reins tightened. The colts broke into a trot and the figure of a young man, walking with long, free stride, came in sight. A shadow crossed the boy's face.
“Danforth!” he exclaimed softly.
“Who is Danforth?” she asked curiously, watching the man approach.
“Aviator at camp. The flying-field is just over there.” He pointed with his whip.
The colts slackened their pace and the man stopped as they came near him. Asa drew rein and bent forward.
“I can't come over this morning! Oh—my sister, Mr. Danforth!” The man lifted his hat with a quiet glance at the girl, He laid a hand on the wheel.
“What's up?” he asked.
“I've got to give up flying!” returned the boy.
“For a year or two,” put in the sister quickly. The man's eyes turned to her.
“Flying is not a thing to put off too long!” he said with a grave half-smile.
“His father doesn't want him to fly. He wants him to raise oats,” said the girl, meeting his gaze.
“Ah!” His eyes seemed to hold hers. The three faces regarded each other, and in each was a vision of Cyrus Truefoot and his oat-field.
The man shrugged his shoulders. “I'm sorry!” he said. “You are a born airman.” He took his hand from the wheel. The girl's eyes regarded him a moment gravely. She turned to the boy with a gesture and reached for the reins.
“Never mind Father this time,” she said peremptorily. “Go!” Something of her father trembled in her voice and gesture. “If you have a chance to learn to fly, take it. You never know when you may need to use it!”
“All right!” He jumped to the ground. “I'll do as much for you some day, Sister!”
“You'll do it for all of us!” She had a quick smile. “An airman doesn't just belong to himself—or his family, does he?”
The man by the wheel regarded her intently.
“I wonder how many women know that!” Her face flushed.
“Everybody does,” she said quietly. “Only we don't like to let you fly too far!” Her eyes seemed to see the vision of the flying squadrons.
She nodded to them half-shyly and gathered the reins again.
“Go and fly!” she said with a quiet laugh. “I'll do my best with Father.”
The boy was looking at the sky. He scanned the billowing clouds to the south. “Thunder-heads!” He looked doubtfully at the colts. The air was full of a kind of tingling force and there was something ominous in the high-marching clouds. He looked again at the colts. The girl shook the reins on their backs with a touch of pride.
“I can manage them,” she said. “It will seem like old times!”
In the oat-field Cyrus Truefoot guided the steers in and out among the stacked bundles of oats. Now and then he swung his long whip over the thin flanks with a leisurely, authoritative “Haw!” and “Gee!”
Cyrus enjoyed saying gee and haw. Something in his blood responded to the easy gait of the slow-moving beasts.
He would have liked Asa's help this morning with the oats, but Ellen must be met. No matter how she had behaved he must not fail in his duty as a father.... aaa A woman can not go far without money. And Cyrus had seen to it that Ellen would not have too much money for her own good if he were to die.
Cyrus had no intention of dying. He was only conscious of a certain grim pleasure in the fact that because of Ellen's spiritual good the Truefoot acres would remain intact when he came to die. But dying was a long way off. He was a strong man still—in the prime of life.
He looked up at the June sky with the great billows of white, and a cloud shadowed his face. There was a strange shape flying between him and the sun. He gazed with hostile look at the thing in the sky. His whip half uplifted itself.
If he had not put his foot down, that strange thing up there might be Asa—flying against the clouds.
He stood in his place staring up at the plane.... It soared like a great bird, and bent its wings and came nearer earth and seemed to hover above his head.
Cyrus snorted a little. He touched the steers with the whip. They plunged forward in surprise. The hired-man jounced and bounded and peered over the edge of the hay-rick at Cyrus' back.
He was striding along, his angry glance on the sky, and the whip in his hand seemed to shake a little. One could fancy Cyrus was shaking it at the clouds. The steers subsided to a sliding trot. The hay-rick jolted and bounced.
Cyrus looked again at the flying portent in the sky. He made up his mind to see his lawyer at once. He would not put it off even for a day. Asa had yielded this time. But suppose he had been older—suppose he had been twenty-one, and wanted to fly!
Asa might be up there above the clouds if he were twenty-one!
He cast another glance at the sky. There were thunder-heads to the south. It looked like rain, and there was a queer, oppressive feeling in the air—as if tingling forces were striving to break through.
He would get in the oats and then he would see Crampton. If the boy was so anxious to get away from the land his fathers had made, let him get away from the land! The old man smiled grimly.... Let him go up and stay up! The Truefoot money could build an orphan asylum!
Cyrus worked more swiftly. He lifted the stacked bundles, one after the other, with long swinging thrusts of the great pitchfork that sent them high on the rick, where Carter stowed away and packed down with heavy-moving foot.
Above, the clouds gathered in billowing masses.
Cyrus cast a swift glance at the shifting clouds. Above them a tiny dot sailed and soared—a dot that might have been Asa! He glared at the sailing dot. What was the matter with the world and with his children?
He asked it angrily. But there was no answer from the clouds—only the queer tingling feeling about him of mighty forces that strove to break through.
Carter, stowing away on the rick, caught the bundles as they swung up to him. And as he trod them down he glanced at the thunder-heads to the south. And from the clouds he glanced to the backs of the steers. The backs were quiet, but the steers stood with noses pressed close together. And when a far-off rumble and flash gleamed at the oat-field they trembled a little and pawed, sniffing the air. Carter's eye from the high rick surveyed them dubiously.
“Think we better risk it?” he called down.
Cyrus threw another bundle to him. He touched the backs with the long lash of the whip.
“Gee!” he said authoritatively.
The steers moved forward slowly and the unwieldy rick lurched behind. Carter peered over uncertainly. He knew Cyrus would not stop till the last bundle was stowed away. He wished he were on the ground and Cyrus on the load. Cyrus lifted another bundle at him and he caught it and threw it behind and trampled it down, one eye on the clouds.... The thunder was coming nearer now. Playful gleams of lightning crossed and recrossed the sky, and the steers lifted nose and snuffed and moved restively.
Cyrus paused, and slapped a sharp hand on the quivering flanks.
“Haw-there! Ged-ap!” he called out.
They moved forward again. Then the heads in the heavy yoke swung around and they wheeled sharply to the right. The rick swayed. Cyrus sprang to their heads, the butt of the whip upraised.
There was a rending crash and flash from the sky—and hoofs plunging in wild terror. The whip descended—once—twice—and disappeared beneath the hoofs. The unwieldy rick swayed on. It moved across the sky like some great ship that founders riding high before it goes down. Carter's face, a round disk of terror, peered over the edge of the rick and glared backward at a silent form that lay stretched on the ground behind. The face was upturned to the sky.
The storm broke and drenched the face.
Along the road a light carriage rolled swiftly. With the reins well in hand, the girl sat forward, watching the riotous sky. Her face glowed as the rain drenched upon it. She spoke soothingly to the colts, guiding them with sure hand.
She was at home in the storm, Generations of Truefoots glowed in her veins and refreshed themselves in the fluid, electric force that played and flashed in the air. She was a creature of the elements without care and without fear, racing through the storm.
The oat-field sped by and she gave a half-glance toward it as she guided the colts. Almost home now!
Then against the sky the great lurching hay-rick loomed up and plunged on, swinging behind maddened steers.
The girl gave a swift glance and a pull on the reins that brought the colts upstanding. She leaped to the ground, tying the colts to the fence, quieting them with soothing words while her hands drew a quick knot and tested it.... Then she was flying across the stubbly field to the form on the ground.
High above her, hovered a dot that swung and turned in hesitating circles and came nearer the ground. She did not turn or look up to the great bird coming nearer with each sweep of wide, outstanding wings. Her eyes were fixed on the ground ahead where the silent figure lay with its face to the sky.
She bent above him and scanned the face, and her hands loosened the wet clothing—stripping and tearing it away, down to a jagged wound below the hip where the blood spurted—bright red. She looked up with quick, desperate glance.
Across the field Asa was racing toward her, and the great bird was rising slowly, skimming from the ground.
She bent again to the figure.
“Take off your shirt!” she said, “as he came up, and while she showed him hurriedly how to lift the leg and hold it in place, her fingers tore at the shirt, stripping and knotting it with swift skill. The rain drenched them. It washed the silent, upturned face that her glance sought again and again as she knotted the strips and drew them tight and bound the leg.... A Her hand reached out to the whip clenched in the tense fingers and loosened it. A great shudder ran through Cyrus as the whip loosened in his grasp. Her face, watching him, lighted swiftly. She inserted the handle in the bandage and twisted it slowly. The blood ceased to flow.
She looked up and drew a long breath.
“You must take the colts and go for Dr. Bell!” she said quickly. “Don't spare them!” The boy's face lighted to her through the rain.
“Danforth's gone!” he shouted. A crash bore down upon them, and lighted up the oat-field with blinding glare. Over by the fence the steers were huddled together and a little distance away the overturned rick tilted at the sky.
She moved toward it swiftly.
From beneath the bundles a round face emerged in wonder.
“By gum! I'm all right!” said Carter. He got to his feet and shook his legs doubtfully. “I'm all right!” he announced solemnly.
“Knock off two of those boards while I get the carriage robe!” called the girl. And she was gone across the field.
Susan Truefoot, lifting the lid from the kettle to look at the dumplings, gave a glance at the storm outside. The lid dropped from her hand.
Through the bars to the oat-field came the strange procession, their heads bent to the rain. And in the improvised stretcher something sagged heavily that sent a grim chill running through her. But the next instant she had thrown open the door to the best bedroom, drawn back the coverlet and stripped down the upper sheet.
She stood in the door as they came up, her eyes questioning the. girl's face.
“It's Father,” said the girl quietly. “Yes. The steers ran with him. But he is alive!”
As they laid him on the best bed Susan, looking down at the heavy, inert figure, had a swift sense that it was impious to lay hand on him and place him where they would—without a gesture or sharp command from the grim silent lips.
“It's ten miles to Dr. Bell's!” she said half audibly. She was gazing, awed, at the strange tourniquet and the handle of the whip that protruded half across the bed.
Asa glanced hastily through the door at the clock in the adjoining room.
It pointed to eleven o'clock.
With a shock he remembered. His last act had been to oppose his will to the silent figure on the bed. His hand trembled as he bent over his father and drew the watch from his pocket—a quarter to twelve! He glanced at his sister.
“He ought to be here now if he's had good luck.”
“The doctor may refuse to come with him,” she said. There was a little catch in her voice. “He's not young, you know. He may be afraid to fly!”
“He's been up—a dozen times!” said the boy with swift pride. “He's the squadron doctor. You can't scare him!”
Susan looked at them, uncomprehending. They talked of strange things, and she was dazed. She looked vaguely at the door. Dr. Bell stood in it regarding her with grave eyes.
He came forward with a quiet glance at the bed.
“Bad business!” he said. His eye touched the outstanding whip and tight-drawn bandage with approving glance and rested on the strange, unseeing look on the upturned face.
“I'll have the room clear for awhile!” he said brusquely. “You stay, Ellen. And send in Danforth. I may need someone with a steady hand to help.”
So Cyrus Truefoot lay between life and death, and an airplane ran errands for him.
He lay on his back, unable to speak or move, but the earth ran as smoothly as if Cyrus' guiding hand were not removed from affairs.
And Susan and Asa and Ellen, passing in and out of the room night and day, with no fear of his imperious will, attending to the slightest want of the strong, helpless man, grew to cherish him with a kind of fierce, devoted tenderness. They would not let him slip back into blankness.
The eyes opened, seeking.... Ellen was standing by the bed.
She turned away, the tears on her face, and hurried from the room. Her mother looked up.
“He is conscious!” said Ellen.
“And—himself?” asked the mother.
“I don't know!” said the girl. A sob broke from her.
Her mother went swiftly toward the other room.
“Cyrus—?” She bent to him.
The eyes turned slowly and with difficulty toward her and regarded her a long minute. Cyrus came traveling back from vast spaces where his soul had been.
“Tuck in the clothes at the foot, can't you!” he said half-testily. “It seems strange nobody knows how to make a bed—the way Mother used to!”
The words trailed away in feeble speech and Susan obeyed with meekness. Her hands trembled. But there was a light in her face as she bent over his bed and drew in the clothes and tucked them firmly in place.
She glanced again at the motionless head on the pillow. He seemed asleep. She slipped from the room.
Ellen looked up with swift inquiry. Her mother nodded.
“Yes, he's come to,” she said. “And he's himself.” She sat down weeping softly.
But if Cyrus was himself it seemed to be a different self from the one that drove the steers to the oat-field.
It was as if some dim-gone Truefoot had taken possession and determined thought and speech. Sometimes Cyrus' face held a look half-awed, half-ashamed, as if he did or spoke something against his will.
The airplane came less often now. Asa had learned to fly. But when John Danforth came to the farm, Susan sat with Cyrus while Ellen and the airman walked in the summer twilight. And Susan, sitting with Cyrus, remembered her own twilights and the soft sounds and scents of the dusk.
If Cyrus knew he gave no sign.
“I didn't save your life,” the doctor said when Cyrus tried awkwardly to thank him. “Any doctor could have done what I did. It was Danforth got me here in time, and your' family that nursed you back to life. But you owe it to Ellen that there was anything left to nurse.”
Cyrus blinked a little.
That afternoon he sent for the lawyer.
The next day he was moved out into the sitting-room. He cast a swift look about him as they wheeled him through the door—at all his dear, familiar possessions—at the desk with his armchair and the old clock on the wall—
His glance halted.
The hands pointed blankly to eleven.
He looked up sharply to Asa who was wheeling his chair.
“Has the clock stopped?”
The boy's lip quivered.
“Yes, sir.”
Cyrus' hand tugged at his watch and drew it out. It had been wound every night since he was ill and it was a good time-keeper. It pointed to eleven o'clock.
“You better start the clock and set it going,” he said casually as he replaced the watch. “It's just twelve—by the right time.”
The boy walked over and opened the case and turned the hands slowly. His hand reached through the long, slender door and touched the pendulum and set it swinging slowly and gently back and forth—ticking as it had ticked for generations of Truefoots before him.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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