The Clock (15 page)

“He hit me. I wrote a letter to Colonel Humphreys that he was stealing wool. Mr. Hoggart found out, and he hit me.” Suddenly I began to cry, for it was all too much for me. And sobbing away like that, I told him the whole story—how we'd slipped into the cabin and found the wool, writing the letter to Colonel Humphreys, and everything else. Finally I got finished and wiped the tears off my face with my shirt. Then I said, “I can't go back to the mill, George. I just can't, I can't. I'll have to run away instead.”

George stood there, still holding the bucksaw, looking grim. Then he said, “Come on, let's go see that cabin.”

“What are you going to do, George?”

“Don't you worry, Annie. I'm going to fix that man Hoggart so he'll wish he never heard of Humphreysville.” He began to walk off as fast as he could go, so I had to jog to keep up with him. We cut across the field, past that blame merino ram that had caused so much trouble, onto the farm lane, out to the village road and then along to the mill road. George never stopped walking with those long strides, never looked around, never said anything. He just kept on going.

We turned into the mill road, went out past the mill, and across the snowy field all chewed up with muddy footprints. When we came to the edge of the woods George stopped. “It's in there?”

“About fifty yards, maybe.”

“Go on. You know where it is. Lead the way.”

So I set off through the woods, my heart beating fast, for I was scared that Mr. Hoggart might be there. But I knew that with George behind me, there wasn't anything he could do to me anymore. I pushed on through the woods, and in a minute I began to see the shape of the cabin dimly through the trees. I stopped. “That's it,” I said.

George pushed past me, and began to stride forward. I followed him, and in about five seconds I noticed that the door wasn't open anymore. It was closed. Then I heard a low curse, and I saw through the branches that Mr. Hoggart was standing in front of the door, bent over doing something. George began to sprint, ducking and dodging through the trees, and I began to run after him.

Now Mr. Hoggart heard us. He straightened up and looked around. George went plunging toward him. “You,” he shouted.

Mr.
Hoggart had tied a handkerchief around his head where Tom Thrush had whacked him, but I could still see a patch of dried blood on his cheek. “What are you doing here? Who are you?” Then he noticed me. “Not you again. Oh, are you in for—”

Then George grabbed him by his shirtfront. He raised his head. “Hoggart, if you ever touch that girl again I'm going to split your head open for good and all.”

“Listen, you—” But George was bigger and stronger, for he'd spent his life cutting wood.

George swung his hand around. It made a great slapping noise when it hit. Mr. Hoggart's head jerked back. “Don't,” he gasped out.

“George,” I shouted. “He's put a new lock on the door.”

George gave Mr. Hoggart a shake, and then he looked at the door. “See if it's closed, Annie.”

I jumped over to the door and pulled on the lock. “It's closed,” I said.

George gave Mr. Hoggart another shake. “I want the key.”

“Let go of me,” Mr. Hoggart gasped again.

George began to twist the other man's collar. “No. No,” said Mr. Hoggart.

“The key.”

“No. Don't.” He began to choke.

“The key.”

Suddenly, Mr. Hqggart reached into his pocket and drew out a key. George snatched it from his hand. Then he flung Mr. Hoggart away like an old sack of corn husks. Mr. Hoggart fell to the ground and lay there, his hands around his neck, groaning. George leapt to the cabin door, turned the key in the lock, pulled off the lock, and swung the door open. He whistled. “Wool, all right. Plenty of it too.”

Then I noticed that Mr. Hoggart was up on his knees and crawling off through the woods. “George, he's getting away.”

“Let him go,” George said. “It doesn't matter what he does anymore. He's finished around here. We'll go see Colonel Humphreys. Once he sees this wool he'll come to realize that you were the one telling the truth, and Hoggart was the liar. I think he'll believe your story now.”

I looked at him. “George, what's going to happen to me?”

He stood there, holding the lock in his hand, and thinking. “Well, there's Pa's debts to consider. I think what we'd best do is tell him straight out that unless he works out something, we'll leave—you and me. Pa isn't a bad man, but he's got the weakness for things. He'll come around.”

“And he'll take back the things he bought? The clock and the saddle and such?”

“The saddle, anyway. He hasn't got any use for it until he gets a horse. But maybe we ought to let him keep the clock. Times
are
changing, Annie. There's going to be more mills, and more people coming in from the farms to work on them. You can't stop progress, if that's what you
want
to call it.”

“And I won't have to work in the mill anymore, George?”

“I'm not sure, Annie. I think maybe you might have to, for a little while. And I'll have to go on cutting firewood. For a while, until we can whittle down Pa's debt some. Just a few months more, I think. Then I guess you can start back to school.”

“That's all I ever wanted,” I said.

“I think it'll come, Annie. Now, let's go see Colonel Humphreys.”

We started off through the woods. “George,” I said. “Why did everything have to change? Why couldn't they go on the way they always did?”

“Things change, Annie.”

“Is it better?”

He shrugged. “I don't know, Annie. I guess you'll have to decide that for yourself.”

THE END

HOW
MUCH OF THIS STORY IS TRUE?

The Clock
is a made-up story; the fiction part of this historical novel. Annie and her family came right out of our imaginations, and so did Robert and Mr. Hoggart. We made up all the particular events in this story. Nevertheless, it is true-to-life in every way.

Colonel Humphreys really existed. In 1806 he established the first real factory in Connecticut, a woolen textile mill just as described here. He brought in about 150 orphans from New York to work in it, and after introducing the slubbing billies, he was the first mill owner in Connecticut to hire girls.

Colonel Humphreys also, in 1802, was the first to import merino sheep into the United States. These sheep had very long wool, which was easier to work with and made better fabric than any other. At first the merinos were worth hundreds of dollars, but later, when others were brought to America by the scores, the price suddenly fell, and many men who had invested in them when the price was high lost great sums of money, just like Annie's father.

Mr. Hoggart represents the kind of overseer that, unfortunately, was too often found in these early mills. As we studied early industrial history, we found many episodes of unbelievably cruel behavior by overseers, some leading to the deaths of mill-workers. One young boy committed suicide rather than go back to the mill. The way in which Robert died was a very likely happenstance. Our own ancestor, Samuel Slater, was crippled as a result of chopping ice off a waterwheel.

Although the story is made up, it is based on real conditions and real events that you can study in good history books. Though most people welcomed the coming of mills to their towns, just as most Americans today are enthusiastic about computer development and space exploration, many people began to wonder if the new industrial life in new cities was any better than the old farm life in the country. And about a generation after the mill came to Humphreysville, people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom we quote on the opening page of this book, began to wonder if it was really worth giving up control over one's own time and life in order to have so many material possessions. We have written this book to give you some help in thinking about whether “progress” is always for the better.

ABOUT
THE AUTHORS

JAMES LINCOLN COLLIER
is the coauthor, with his brother, Christopher Collier, of
My Brother Sam Is Dead,
a Newbery Honor Book;
The Bloody Country; The Winter Hero; Who Is Carrie?; War Comes to Willy Freeman;
and
Jump Ship to Freedom.
He has written many other highly acclaimed books for young readers, including
The Teddy Bear Habit
and, for adults,
The Making of Jazz.
He lives in New York City.

CHRISTOPHER COLLIER
is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and Connecticut State Historian. His field is early American history, especially the American Revolution. He is the author of
Roger Sherman's Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution
and other works. He and his family live in Orange, Connecticut.