Christopher And The Clockmakers Part 8

"I do believe you're sorry to be done with her," a.s.serted the boy mischievously. A second later, however, he regretted his impulsive jest, for his companion answered gravely:

"I am. I've enjoyed working on her. I'd be far sorrier, though, did I not know she is going where she will be appreciated. The woman that owns her watches over her as if she were a live creature--and indeed she is--almost."

"It's nice to feel she isn't being wasted on some dumbbell, isn't it?"

declared Christopher, catching the old man's enthusiasm.

"She's not being wasted. I can answer for that. I know the house where she lives well, for I've been there times without number to regulate clocks. There are some beauties and they have the history of every one of them--the name of the maker, the date when they were made, the place, and all. I like to handle clocks for people like that. It shows they are intelligent and care. Some folks do not know one thing about their clocks. They won't even take the trouble to wind them regularly.

Nevertheless they are the first ones to fuss if the poor things fail to keep good time. I wonder how they would like, for example, to have their meals served to them just whenever somebody happened to think of it."

Christopher nodded agreement with the sentiment.

"To be sure," McPhearson continued, "people sometimes own clocks that aren't worth much pains. Still, it's only right to keep them cleaned and help them to do the best they can, even at that. All clocks can't be Tompions, or Grahams, or Quares, any more than we can all be Washingtons and Lincolns. It isn't their fault nor ours."

"You care a lot about clocks, don't you?" meditated Christopher aloud.

"I suppose I do," the old man confessed. "Clocks have come to be almost people to me; in fact, some of them are a good sight better than people.

By that, I mean they have finer traits. They go quietly ahead and do their work without bl.u.s.ter or complaint. When they don't it is usually because something's the matter with them. They are patient, faithful, useful, and were they to be taken out of the world they would be terribly missed and would leave it a pretty higgledy-piggledy place."

"I guess there is no danger of the world being without clocks," returned Christopher comfortably. "There seem to be plenty to go round."

"But there weren't always plenty," broke in McPhearson quickly. "You chance to live in a fortunate age, young man, and do not half appreciate your blessings. Had you lived a few hundred years ago you would have had no clocks."

"Mercy on us! Why, how on earth did people manage to get on without them?"

"Primitive persons studied the sun and calculated by that," McPhearson responded. "Then some ingenious creature thought out the sundial whereby the hour could be gauged by a shadow; also marks were made where the sun would strike at a given time--perhaps at noon. Such a notch was called the noon mark."

"Oh, gee! But suppose there was no sun?"

"Exactly! Now you have put your finger on the pulse of the dilemma! What was to be done when there was no sun? The sundial at best was none too correct. In different lat.i.tudes, too, different markings were needed.

Moreover, a sundial, to be of practical value, had to be kept steady.

What was to happen on shipboard? On cloudy days? At night?"

"The sundial was about as much good as a fan would be in Greenland,"

grinned Christopher.

"Yes, just about. It was these sunless hours that were the problem."

"Humph! I never thought of that in my life."

"Most of us don't."

"I suppose that was why people began making clocks."

"You don't for a moment imagine men leaped from sundials to clocks, do you?" interrogated the Scotchman quizzically.

"Oh, perhaps not such nice ones as ours," conceded the boy with easy unconcern. "Still they had to tell time somehow."

"Clocks were a long way off from suns and shadows."

"But what did come next?"

"To sundials, you mean? Well, for a long, long time people could think of nothing better. They introduced trifling remedies now and then, however. For example, in the seventeenth century they evolved a portable dial that could be carried from place to place. Sometimes this was combined with a compa.s.s; sometimes it was made in the form of a ring. It was an awkward subst.i.tute for the watch, but it was, nevertheless, great-great-great-grandfather to it. Yet advantageous as it was to be able to carry the time about with you, it did nothing to lessen the long, unmarked stretch of darkness that descended upon the earth every night. How was man to solve that difficulty?"

"How indeed?"

"That was his puzzle--his nut to crack. Throughout the ages it has been conundrums like these that have taxed human ingenuity and made of life such an alluring adventure. On the conquering of difficulties civilization has been built up. Well, man now attacked this problem of telling time. He did not aspire to narrow it down to any very fine point, for at that period of history one day was very like another, and he was a leisurely being with little to do but eat, sleep, fight or hunt. Notwithstanding this, however, he did want to know _when_ it was noon; _when_ it would be day. King Alfred, one of the English monarchs, hit upon a plan for telling the hours of the night by means of tall candles, made to burn a definite interval. When, for example, one of his candles burned out, he knew that four or six hours had pa.s.sed. Other persons went further and had candles marked off into hours with black and white wax--"

"That was a clever scheme!"

"Clever, yes; and all very well for kings who could afford to burn wax tapers night after night. But there were, alas, many unfortunates who couldn't. Accordingly the obstacle persisted, and urged the world on to the next step up the time-telling ladder."

"And what was that?" demanded Christopher with interest.

"Telling time by water."

"By _water_! But how?"

"It was not so difficult as it sounds. In reality it was quite a simple plan. The ancients would take a jar, make a tiny hole in the bottom of it, fill it with water, and let the water drip slowly out. Having measured how long it would take to empty the jar, they had a sort of water clock."

"Bravo! That was certainly easy."

"Easy and far better than the sundial, too, for water would drip either in light or darkness, on cloudy days as well as bright ones. By means of marks on the jar, shorter intervals of time could also be determined.

The receptacle, however, had to be kept filled and the hole free so there should be no variation in the regularity of the dripping. This water clock was called a _clepsydra_, the name being taken from two Greek words meaning 'thief of water.' Well, as you may imagine, the populace were delighted with this contrivance. It seemed as if now they certainly had the prize for which they had been searching. Moreover, with the water clock a new factor in time came into being. Instead of telling _when_, as the sundial did, the clepsydra, by measuring a given interval, told _how long_, which was a very different thing indeed. In other words it began to draw people's attention to the duration of time."

"That is different, isn't it?" mused the boy.

"Quite another matter altogether," McPhearson said. "Immediately the Athenians, who had invented the device, put it to work and proceeded to limit the length of time speakers should talk in their courts of justice. Evidently then, as now, men were fond of making speeches and arguing and became so fascinated by hearing themselves talk that they forgot to stop. Now here was something that would put a check on them.

When a case came up for a hearing, the accuser was allowed the first jar of water, the accused the second, and the judge the third. Stationed beside the clepsydra was a special officer whose duty it was not only to fill it but to stop the flow whenever a speaker was interrupted, thereby making certain he was not cheated of any of the time due him."

"A bully scheme!" Christopher remarked.

"It worked," McPhearson answered. "With such strict rules you may be sure there was none of the thing the Athenians termed 'babbling.' Men guarded their words like jewels when each word meant the dripping away of his allotted time."

"And did people continue to use this water clock?"

"Yes, for quite a time, but after a while they began to find fault with it. In the first place they noticed that when the vessel was full the greater pressure of water caused it to drip much faster than when there was not much in it. This they had not considered before, and the discovery forced them to attempt to improve it. This they did by concocting a sort of double jar. In the lower one there was a float that rose as the container filled; and since the top one was constantly replenished, it kept the pressure in the bottom one uniform."

"The best yet!"

"Much the best. In fact it was a stride ahead from several standpoints, for although it could not really be termed a machine it nevertheless was a device that did for man something he would otherwise have had to do for himself, which is the aim of all machinery. In just that proportion he moved toward a civilization where artificial methods relieved him of his labor. Thus he advanced quite a distance from that primitive condition when he did everything with his hands toward his next state of fashioning tools that would do what he wished to do better and quicker; here was something which worked independently of him."

"Why, so it was! I never thought before that man pa.s.sed through those three stages," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Christopher with pleasure; "it makes our old forefathers twice as interesting, doesn't it?"

"Three times as interesting," the Scotchman laughingly responded. "Facts make very delightful stories, if you fasten them together. Scattered, unrelated information is both dry and worthless. It is only when linked up in the chain of history that it becomes interesting and valuable."

"The trouble with me is I never know where the things I learn belong,"

observed the lad soberly. "It's like fitting pieces into a puzzle when you've no notion what picture you are making."