Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-08-12
HEARD AND SEEN.

The secretary to the President had
put in an exhausting day. There had
been much to do in the White House
There had been great questions Of war
policy: there had been knotty little
problems-like mosquitoes. which are
important only because they buzz and
sing and have to be attended to be-
cause they are SO annoying: and there
were bothersome little gnats. even
smaller than mosquitoes: like friends
who wanted to get letters of recon-
mendation for other friends. 1t was
day when the Thermometer was away
up. and piled higher than the mercury
was work and worry and turmoil.
Through it all the secretary to the
President went silently about his job.
carrying a big load and never letting
any one know 1t. He was a stolid.
steering between the proper buoys and
never letting any of the petty troubles
reach the President. Oh. you can go to
the White House and say that the sec
fan and Ice water handy in a silver
pitcher. and all that-but IL the secre-
tary's hair was not fine blond you
would be seeing a white hair come
through now and then, just as a matter
Of protest.
Now 1t was after this worrisome.
fretting day that the secretary left the
White House and went homeward.
Transforming. himself en- route to Joe
Tumulty. father Of six little Tumulties.
and whenever he undergoes that trans
formation he becomes one of the six
himself, and is Trenton, n. j.. kid
again.
So when he reached home and the
mother of the six little Tumulties show
ed him a bad little boy. scarcely up to
his fathers knee. and yet covered from
head to foot with paint. the secretary
to the President hardened his heart
for one passing flicker Of time and then
melted again as he thought of an hour
long since dead.
That's a bad boy" he said with a
terrific frown, and then turning to the
| little boys mother he said:
"Shucks. / used to be covered with
paint every day in the week when
was his age"
X =
| A wooden watch. hanging in front of
a jewelers. store. announcing to the
| world at large that within the shop
| chronometers will be repaired. The
wooden watch is the sign of watch re-
| pairing and jewelry for sale all. over
| this country: just az striped pole is
| still the sign Of the Der shop. albeit
| the pole is rapidly becoming as rare as
/ the old-time BARRIERS sponge or the
| solute extinction.
Winfield Larner told me the story of
| the wooden watch. He started on by
saying:
| "A wooden watch is the emblem of
| reverence and love for one Of the great
est men this world has ever known"
| Then he asked me II / had ever
noticed the painted hands on one of the
! big chronometers hanging in the wind
before a watchmaker's place No? Then
| here is the story:
I'm almost every case the painted
hands on the wooden watches point to
the same time. The hour hand touches
| eight and the minute hand is some
where between fifteen and twenty min
utes past the hour. You will notice
this in your travels up and down this
town and in any city or village through
out the country. The wooden watch
| generally points to about seventeen
| minutes past eight.
That is the minute and hour in which
President Lincoln died; and the wooden
watches hanging in front of so many
shops throughout this land have
gripped that exact second of the worlds
| events and have perpetuated it as far
as a wooden clock can do so.
/ "The req aon for this lies in the love