Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-01-01
Ssleftsa g}aiseellaat|.
THE GO0D.NATURED PENDULUHr.
From the Atlantic for January.

From the Atlantic for January.
AN old clock, which stood in the corner
of Parson Whipple's school room, sudden
ly began to tick twice as fast as usual. 1t
did so for two or four hours, according as
you counted time by its beats or by an
,hour-glass. Then it ticked for the re-
mainder of its life at apparently the same
rate as usual. This was never a discon-
tented pendulum; and on thatday, Single
ton and J, who were the only boys in its
counsels, thought it was very good
natured.
But I do not pretend it was right. Have
l said it was right for the pendulum to
tick so? / have not said it. l have only
said that it was good natured in the pen
dulum to tick twice as fast as usual, when
it simply knew that wished it to do so.
Although | was then responsible for what
the pendulum did, l assert that / am not
now responsible for it. | was then four
teen, and am now hard on fifty-six, so I
must have changed atomically six times
since then. | reject responsibility for all
my acts at Parson Whipple's I do not
justify the pendulum, / do not Justify
myself, far less do justify Singleton
| only say. it was good, natured pendu-
lum
We were all to go after chestnuts, and
we had made immense preparation, the
old dominic not unwilling. We had
sewed up into many bags some old bed
tick, dear, kind Miss Tryphosa had given
us; we had coaxed Clapp's cousin Perkins
son of Matthew Perkins third, of the
old black Perkins blood-we had coaxed
him into getting the black mare for us
from his father. Clapp was to harness
him, and we were to have the school
: wagon to bring our spoils home. We had
{ laid in with the Varnum boys to meet us
at the cross roads ia the hollow; and, in
short, we were to give the trees such a
belaboring as chestnut-trees had not
known in many years. For all this we
had the grant of a halfholiday; we had
by great luck capital sharp frost on
: Tuesday, we had everything but-time.
Red Jacket would have told us we
had all the time there was, and, if Mr..
Emerson had come along, he might
have enforced the lesson. But he was
elsewhere just then, and the trouble with
us was, that, having all the time there was,
weswanted more. And no hard bestead
conductor on single track road, eager to
"mske the time" which he must have to
reach the predestined switch in season,
ever questioned and entreated his engi-
neer more volubly than we assailed each
other as to how we could make the short
afternoon answer for the gigantic purpos-
es of this expedition. You see there is a
compensation in alLthings If you have
ever gone after chestnuts, you have found
out that the sun sets mighty near five
o'clock when you come to the Goth of Oc-
tober; and if you don't get through
school till one, and then must all have din
ncr, I tell you it is very hard to start four
teen boys after dinner, and drive. the wag-
on, and walk the boys down to the Hol.
s low, and then meet the Varnums and drive
up that rough road to Clapp's grand
mothers, and then take down the bars
and lead the horse in through the pasture
to where we meant to tie him in the edge
of the hemlock second growth, aud then
to carry the bags across the stream, and so
work up on the hill where the best trees
are IL say il is very hard to do all that
and come out on the road again and on
the way home before dark. And if Won
think it is easy to do it in three hours and
half, I wish you would try. All is, will
not give sixteen cents for all the
chestnuts you get in that way.
SO, as I said, we wanted to make the
time. Well, dear Miss Tryphosa said that
she would put dinner at twelve, if we
Is liked, and if we could coax the dominic
70 let US out of school then. So we asked
lHackmatack to ask him, aud Hackmstack
cid not dare to, but he coayed Sarah Cla-
vers to ask him. The old man loved Sarah
I Clavers, as everybody did. Sne was a
sweet little thing, and she did her best
Old man, 1 call him That was the way
we talked, Let me see, he graduated in
lSll,-l guess he was in, EYerett's class
aud Frothingham's The @old man. as
we called him, nust have been thirty
seYen years old then,-nineteen years