The Clock (6 page)

Ma looked at me. “Your pa's right about that, Annie. It isn't any of your business. Just stay out of it.” Then she looked at Pa. “But that isn't any reason why she should be pestered. If it happens again I want her out of the mill.”

“Now, now, you two are not going to start giving me orders,” Pa said.

Then George walked in, carrying the ax. He looked around at us. “What's happening?”

“Annie 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.”

“Annie'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.”

“Now, 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?”

“Yes. I'm certain he'll try again.”

“Was he drunk?”

“He was drinking rum from a bottle.”

“Well, maybe it won't happen again,” George said. “Maybe it was just because he was drinking.”

“I'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.”

“George, 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 path with our tea bucket.

“Tom, where's Robert?”

He stopped. “Didn't you hear about it, miss?”

“Hear about what?”

“Robert ain't the tally boy no longer. He's got to work regular, just like the rest of us.”

“But he can't,” I cried. “Not with that foot.”

“Maybe he can, and maybe he can't,” Tom said. “But he's got to, anyway. Hoggart's had him loading bags of yarn onto carts all morning.”

It was the worst possible job for Robert, for trying to walk with that bad foot of his under a heavy weight was certain to make him stumble and trip all the time. I wanted to see him real bad, but he wasn't around where I could get to him anymore. It was Saturday, though, and I knew I could talk to him when we were coming home from church the next day.

The trees were bare now, the sky was filled with clouds, and the air was chill. After church Robert and I came along behind the rest, and talked. “Of course he doesn't want me to be tally boy anymore,” Robert said. “He's afraid I might calculate things out and find out how much wool is missing.”

“He doesn't know you already did it.”

“No, I don't guess he figures I'd have done that. There wouldn't be any reason for a tally boy to calculate that. I wouldn't have done it either, but I just happened to notice something in the figures one day that struck me curious.”

“But you can't be carrying and hauling things,” I said. “You'll fall and hurt yourself sooner or later.” “I don't guess he'd mind that very much.” I thought a minute. “Did you tell your pa?”

“Yes. He went down to the mill and spoke to Mr. Hoggart. He told Pa I'd made a lot of mistakes in the tally and wasn't up to the job.”

“That's a lie,” I said angrily.

“Shush, keep your voice down, Annie.”

“But it is a lie. Did your pa believe it?”

“He
said
he didn't,” Robert said. “He
said
he trusted my word. But I don't know. Of course Mr. Hoggart wants people to believe that I've been making mistakes in the tally, in case I should ever tell somebody about it. He wants to be able to say that I wasn't accurate in my figures, and nobody should believe anything I say.”

“But we know he's stealing. You did the calculations.”

Robert shrugged. “That isn't any good anymore. He has all the old tally sheets. Who knows how he's changed them? And he'll make sure that I don't see any more tally sheets ever again.”

I winced. “I hate him. I hate him so.” We started walking again. “Robert, we have to prove that he's stealing wool. If we could prove it, he'd lose his situation and we'd have a different
overseer.”

Robert shook his head. “I'm not sure, Annie. Maybe it would be best to let things lie. We might just end up worse off.”

“But you can't go on this way. You're bound to get hurt sooner or later.”

“I have to wait it out for a while. I have to see how things go. Maybe something will come up.”

“What if nothing does come up?”

He shook his head. “I'll have to quit and go someplace else.”

That shocked me. I looked at him. “Go someplace else?”

“There's nothing for me here in Humphreysville but the mill.”

“What about apprenticing to someone? Or getting a job in the village store?”

He shook his head. “I've thought about all those things, Annie. As far as the village store is concerned, Abel Fitch has got two sons coming along, and has all the help he needs at home. And who would I apprentice to? I'm not fit to work as a wheelwright for Mr. Brown, or as a gunsmith for Mr. Stock. What else is there? No, if I can't work at the mill I'll have to leave Humphreysville. Maybe go to New Haven, where there's plenty of shop work. Maybe I could apprentice to an apothecary.”

Hearing that made me go cold all over. I'd always thought that Robert would be here. It never before crossed my mind that he might go away. What would I do? “If you go, I'll go with you, Robert.”

He grinned at me. “I don't know what your ma would say about that, Annie.”

“I don't care. I'll run away. I'll get a job in a mill somewhere and study when I can and get to be a schoolteacher.”

Robert shook his head. “Let's see how things go,” he said. Then we came to his house and he went in with his family to have supper.

******

I had to talk to somebody about it, and I decided to tell Hetty Brown. Her house was on the village road on the other side of the village green near the mill. It wasn't much out of my way, and sometimes I walked home with her, and had a glass of cider before I went on home myself. We left together on Monday at five o'clock, and as soon as we were clear of the mill I said, “Hetty, if I tell you a secret will you promise not to tell?”

“I promise. I won't tell.”

“Know why Robert isn't tally boy anymore? It's because Robert and I caught Mr. Hoggart stealing wool. Robert already knew he was doing it, because the tally sheets didn't come out right.
Then
I went to ask him not to dock my pay for being late, and there he was in the carding room, filling a bag with wool.”

She gave me a kind of scared look. “Are you sure?”

“Certain of it. The tally sheets have been coming up short for months, Robert says. And then we caught him. He doesn't want Robert to be tally boy anymore. He's got to do lifting and hauling, and he's bound to hurt himself.” It made me feel a lot better to have somebody to tell it to. “But you mustn't tell anybody.”

“I promise.”

“Not even your pa.”

But Hetty was bound to look on the best side of it. “Maybe he doesn't think you know. Maybe he just decided to give Robert a different job for some reason.”

“I wish that was true.”

“Maybe you can do something about it,” Hetty said.

“He said if I was friendly to him he might make me lamp girl.”

“See?” Hetty said. “He isn't so mad at you after all.”

I frowned. “I couldn't be friendly to him if I tried. I hate him.”

“You shouldn't hate anyone,” Hetty said.

“Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. Look what he did to Tom Thrush just for gossiping a little. And now he's trying to hurt Robert.”

I looked at her. “What are we going to do?”

She took hold of my hand and we stopped in the road, facing each other. “I'll tell my pa,” she said.

“No, don't.” I said. “You promised. We don't have any proof.”

She thought for a minute. “How would you get proof?”

I wiped my eyes. “If we could find out what he does with the wool. He has to hide it someplace,” I said.

“Wouldn't he try to sell it?” Hetty asked.

“Well, he would, we figure. But he wouldn't go out and sell a bagful every few days. He'd save it up until he had a wagon load, and then slip away with it at night and sell it a long way from here. It must be stored someplace.”

“All you have to do, then, is find where he stores it.”

“It wouldn't be so easy. How would you do it?”

“You could think of a way,” Hetty said.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

T
HE FIRST THING
I had to do was find out where Mr. Hoggart was hiding the wool. That wasn't going to be the easiest thing, for now that we were supposed to be running on clock time on the farm, Pa kept a good eye put for when I was supposed to be home from the mill in the evenings. I wasn't going to have much of a chance to wait around after the mill closed and spy on Mr. Hoggart.

Where was he hiding the wool? How did he carry it out of the mill without being seen? When did he do it? Then I remembered something that Tom Thrush had said, about Mr. Hoggart not going to church on Sunday with the boys. What was that all about? I bided my time, and a couple of days later, just after the noon bell rang and Tom was due to come along with our dinnertime tea, I slipped out of the slubbing room, down the stairs, and met Tom just as he was about to come up.

“Tom, what was that you said about Mr. Hoggart ducking out of church every Sunday?”

“Oh, he ducks out all right, regular as clockwork. He sees the boys in, and stands in the back until everybody's settled down. Then he slips out and don't turn up again until service is near finished.”

I dropped my voice down a little. “Tom, I think I've got a way to get Mr. Hoggart.”

He squinted his eyes at me. “I'm going to kill him when I get the chance.”

“You don't have to do that,” I said. “He's stealing wool out of the mill. If we catch him at it, it'll go hard on him.”

He stared at me. “How do you know that?”

“I know. He comes over here on Sunday when the boys are in church and steals it.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as I can be. We have to catch him at it, though.”

He thought about that. “If you already know it, why do we have to catch him at it?”

“We have to prove it. We have to find out where he takes it, so we can show Colonel Humphreys. He's bound to discharge Mr. Hoggart when he finds out. He might even go to jail.”

Tom smiled. “Might he?”

“He probably would. But we have to catch him first. Somebody's got to slip in here one Sunday and spy on him.”

Tom stopped smiling, and frowned.

“Now, what darn fool do you suppose is goin' to take a risk like that?”

“I thought you said you'd like to kill him.”

“Killin'
is one thing. Spyin' on him when he's alive and could kick your ribs in is another.”

“I didn't think you were such a coward,” I said.

He stopped sweeping and blinked at me. Then he said, “If you was to do it, how would you do it?”

“Why, duck behind a tree when Mr. Hoggart herded the boys off for church service, the way you always do. Then slip up here into the mill and watch to see if he comes up to the carding room with a sack. That's easy enough, isn't it?”