The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1908-09-08
Just ABOUT CLOCKS
MRS. ellLToPs GIVES HER HUB
By A LESSON.
Discoveries Previously Made Are tx
planned by Her to the Head OF
the Household, Who 10 Duly
Impressed.

my goodness" said MI. Bliltops'
81 can't wind the clock!"
whats the trouble, Ezra?' said
Mrs. B.
why, the pointer is right over M
keyhole," Mr.. Billtops said.
Mrs. Billtops looked up at MIR. 3.
and the clock he had set out to wind,
and a glance vas sufficient.
"Of course it u.s." she said. It's
eight o'clock and the pointer is al
Ways ver the keyhole at eight O'Clock
Now, you will have to wait till the
pointer gets past. then you can vino
it."
And then MI. Billtops. who. with all
his years, is in many ways most unso-
ph~isticated, sat down to read the pa
per to wait for the hour hand OF the
clock to get past the eight o'clock key
hole so that he could wind 1t. But be-
fore beginning to read he laid h pa
per on his knee for a moment and,
looking over at Mrs. B., said:
why, l never knew that before
about the pointer and the keyhcle.'
We'll, Ezra" said Mrs. Billtops,
who in the course of her m~ultifarious
household duties has set balky clocks
going and oiled clocks with Z broom.
splint, who knows more about clock
than Mr.. Billtops would in a thousand
years and who could beat him a.
mending anything seven times around
the globe, Its always been SO, only
l guess you never happened to notice
it. And it's Just the same at -four
o'clock, only you never noticed that
because you are not home to wind the
clocks at that hour; and you generally
wind them before eight, SO you never
noticed that.
Il don't pretend to be a clockmaker
Ezra" Mrs. Billtops continued, but
guess it comes about something GkS
this:
In a clock that winds with . key
you have to have two keyholes
one for the running part and one TO
the striking part; and now these key
holes might have been put in the up
per part of the clock face-by the
two on one side and the ten on the
other-but l guess the original clock
makers didn't put them there because
the old-time clocks we're all big clocks
and that might have brought them VI
too high to be reached conveniently;
so they put them down in the lower
part of the face where they would bt
handler, where you now always FIND
them-One on one side by the fOul
and the other on the other side by tn.
eight.
And so. twice 4 day, when the houl
hand is at four or at eight, It cover.
the keyhole there, and then you hav'
to wait for it to get by before yo'
can wind the clock. And then, q
course, you know the minute hant
goes round the clock face every hour
and so, though in It's travels 1t doesn'
stay there long, it covers each key
hole every hour. So you ee, Ezra
there are really altogether . goos
many times in the course OF a da.
when you can't wind a clock, though
there is really nothing in this to b.
surprised over when you once RI
alize It,"
And at the end of this little dil
course Mr.. Billtops looked up At tn
clock that had surprised him. AM
seeing the. hour hand now sufficient,
clear of the keyhole so that he coul'
get the key into it. he wound the clocl
to make sure that he would not FOL
get that, and then. as he sat dow
again, he cast one admirin
glance 1t Mrs. B ltops, thinking t
himself rs he did so. before taking u
his paper, that while she might not b
q clockmaker she certainly was . mos
wonderful woman.