Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1892-12-14
"A CLOCK ON A STRIKE.
1T WAS WORSE THAN AN INTERNAL
/ MACHINE IN EFFECT.


This is story about a clock which
made great deal of trouble for two
people and gave the same two people
very poor opinions of each other. The
brother says that no woman in the world
save his sister could have had such
amazing ignorance about clocks in gen
eral, and this one in particular, while
his sister declares that only her brother,
of all men on earth, would have allowed
a little bit of clock to make a fool of
him before carload of strangers.
The trouble with the clock was that it
wouldn't keep time. There was no
reason in the world why it wouldn't; it
Just wouldn't, and that was all there
was to it. This was painful to the
Young woman for several reasons. 1t is
only necessary to mention one; the
timepiece had been given to her by her
betrothed. He thought it was little
gem of a clock, and that it would please
her. She agreed with him as to the
beauty of the delicate little affair, and
was pleased fora time. Then she began
to get worried; then she got nervous,
and lastly alarmed. This was all of
course because the thing would not go,
and, because she feared he might think
she had broken it, or, worse still, as she
herself confessed between time, that she
hadn't sense enough to make clock go,
while her irreverent and impertinent
brother suggested sweetly that he was
more likely to think that it was her
"face which had stopped a clock"
The family were in the country when
the clock was received, and when the
time drew near for the arrival of the
betrothed clock giver affairs began to be
desperate. The young woman declared
that that clock had to go. The clock
simply wouldn't. She would wind it
up-it would always wind without the
slightest resistance-but it would not
go. She shook it, she turned it upside
down, she coaxed it, she laid it on its
face and then on its back, and the hands
were still froze to the face of the clock.
"Albert," she said to her brother,
'you must take this clock over to town
and get it repaired. 1t must be repaired;
it must CO."
Now town was ten miles away, and
Albert did not see why any one should
make so much fuss over a clock, and
such little clock, too, as that was. But
when arguments and pleadings could
not move him he yielded to tears, and,
chucking the timepiece under his arm,
he boarded the train and started for
town. In the car he placed the clock on
the seat beside him and rested his hand
on it. Then more trouble began. That
clock began to strike. 1t went into the
striking business in a calm, determined
way.
1t struck right along, up grade and
down grade, around curves and on
straight tracks The brother felt a
faiuting around his heart. The people
in the car who had first been amused
began to be annoyed. The young mans
face got red; it got warm; his hair be-
came bathed with dampness, but he
chung to the clock like Trojan. He
had an idea that he might be able to
hide it or smother it or close it, he
didn't know which, and so he kept his
hand tightly pressed on it.
And all the time that internal ma
chine Just Sawed wood" 1t had struck
q gait which it liked, and it kept it up
without break. 1t showed no signs of
getting tired or of running down. 1t
was striking along at a 2:20 gait when
the train reached the town. 1t con-
tinued to strike when the brother made
his oscar from the car. 1t went on
striking -, the street until the brother
wanted to throw it over a fence and
then commit suicide. No burglar alarm
was ever more persevering than that
clock. No changing fire engine ever
made more noise and caused more ex-
element The clock was striking away
industriously and cheerfully when the
brother ran into a jewelers. shop and
threw the thing down on counter.
For heavens sake stop it, he cried
But it had stopped. There it lay on
the counter as dumb as an oyster and as
silent as tomb.
"Well, I'll be hanged, said the broth
err breathlessly. whats the matter
with it anyway he asked, looking at
it as if it were a dynamite cartridge.
The jeweler picked it up.
Look Quit" cried the brother. THAT
thing will start mp again if you touch
it."
But it didn't. 1t never made a sound,
only in minute came gentle and
rhythmic ticking.
"Theres nothing the trouble with it, -
said the jeweler, setting the hands and
then examining the little internal ma
chine. "You see," he added with SYM
pathetic smile, this is a repeating clock.
You can make it restrike the last hour
by touching this spring. You have been
winding up the repeating sounder, but
not the clock. And you must have held
your hand on the spring when you kept
it striking. It's all right now. All you
want to do is to wind the clock more and
the repeater less"
"Ohr' said the brother with gasp
and that was all.
Now the brother says that any woman
who doesn't know enough to wind a
clock doesn't know enough to live. And
the sister says-well, every brother
Knows what sisters can saw Nav YOrl,