The Clock by James Lincoln Collier Read Free Book Online Page B

orders,” Pa said.
    Then George walked in, carrying the ax. He looked around at us. “What’s happening?”
    â€œAnnie says Mr. Hoggart’s been pestering her.”
    George looked at me. “Did he touch you?”
    I hated talking about it. “He grabbed hold of me. He tried to kiss me.”
    â€œAnnie’s overwrought,” Pa said. “I don’t think it was as bad as that.”
    George stood there, holding the ax. “I heard something like that about him. They say something like that happened where he worked before.”
    â€œNow, George,” Pa said. “It isn’t right to spread rumors. If we believed half of what we heard about people, we wouldn’t be able to trust anybody.”
    George didn’t say anything, but he gave Pa a long look. Pa looked out the window. “I guess I’d better have a talk with Mr. Hoggart.”
    I knew if he did that Mr. Hoggart would come down on me mighty hard. “Please, Pa, don’t. It’ll only make it worse.”
    Pa puffed out his cheeks. “I’ll think about it,” he said.
    It was the same as with the clock. He’d paid a lot of money for it, and he was going to have us go by it, whether it made any sense or not. I could see where you had to go by clock time at the mill, for everybody had to start and stop together. But on a farm it was better to go by the sun and the seasons. You couldn’t hay in the rain, no matter what any clock said, and you sheared the sheep when the shad-bushes bloomed, because that was how you knew it was warm enough for the sheep to do without their coats. And you planted the corn when the oak leaves were the size of a mouse ear. And you couldn’t tap the maple trees by a calendar, either, for you had to do it when the sap ran, and that was up to God, and not Pa.
    But Pa was bound and determined to believe that going by clock time was a good thing, and so he believed it; and he was bound and determined to believe that Mr. Hoggart wasn’t really pestering me, either. Pa wasn’t bad. He didn’t want Mr. Hoggart to pester me any more than Ma did. But he wanted me in the mill, and so he saw things the way he wanted them.
    But George believed me. After dinner we went out to the barn to water the animals and settle them down for the night. George hung the lantern on a peg in the wall, and we began pitching the old wet hay out into the barnyard. “He really did touch you, Annie?”
    â€œYes. I’m certain he’ll try again.”
    â€œWas he drunk?”
    â€œHe was drinking rum from a bottle.”
    â€œWell, maybe it won’t happen again,” George said. “Maybe it was just because he was drinking.”
    â€œI’m worried.”
    George stopped with the pitchfork stuck down in a clump of wet hay. “If he does it again, you tell me. I’ll beat the whey out of him myself.”
    â€œGeorge, I’ve got to get out of that mill.”
    He looked grim. “I think you’re stuck, Annie. For now, anyway. You’ll have to endure it. Who knows, maybe Pa really will make a fortune on that ram.”
    I looked at him. “Do you really believe that, George?”
    He grinned. “No. But we can always hope, can’t we?
    George was on my side, that was true. He didn’t want to see me working in the mill forever just to pay for Pa’s fancy notions, any more than he wanted to work twelve hours a day in the woodlot to pay for them either. But the truth was that George figured things the same way Pa did—that it wasn’t necessary for a girl to study geography and history, when she could be doing something useful to earn her keep.
    But Robert was different, and I wanted to talk to him about it all. The next day at the mill I went looking for him, but he wasn’t where he usually was underneath the rope and pulley, weighing up wool. I stood looking around, and then Tom Thrush came down the