The Clock (7 page)

“You think he'd go to jail?”

“He might,” I said.

Tom began to whistle. Then he went on up the stairs with the tea bucket, and I went on up after him. Well, I didn't know if he'd do it, or wouldn't do it. He wasn't going to promise anything. I'd just have to wait to find out.

I didn't have a chance to talk to Robert until Sunday service. Mr. Hoggart was keeping him busy packing yarn and loading it to be shipped out, and I never saw Robert until Sunday. But on Sunday I told him.

We had two services, a morning service and an afternoon one. Between them we had a big Sunday dinner. All of us who had to travel some distance carried big dinner baskets and ate together.

During the good weather we generally ate Sunday dinner outside, sitting under trees, or on the stone walls. But now it had come late fall, and the air was getting chill, we ate in the carriage shed on the trestle tables the men would set up after the morning service. The women would all bring food from home—pieces of roast pork, big pots of baked beans, johnnycake, fried squash, jellies, pickles. It was mighty pleasant sitting down to dinner with so many together in that big shed, the chickens pecking around for bits of corn bread that were dropped, and the dogs snoozing by the table.

I couldn't talk to Robert until we were done eating. Then we went outside and sat on a stone wall, the way we usually did. Robert looked tired and pale. Mr. Hoggart was wearing him out.

“Robert, I know how Mr. Hoggart is stealing the wool. He does it on Sunday, when everybody's at church service.”

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

“He doesn't always stay at service. Tom Thrush told me. He herds the boys over to our church, and then he slips off like he's going to the Episcopal Church. I'm sure he goes back to the mill and takes some wool then.”

He shook his head. “You can't be sure of that.”

“I aim to find out,” I said.

He frowned down at the dead grass. “You're going to get yourself in a peck of trouble.”

“I'll
be careful. Anyway, I'm not going to do it myself. I talked Tom Thrush into doing it. Maybe.”

“I wish you'd drop it, Annie.”

“I can't. We have to get rid of him.”

******

On Monday, just after breakfast, Tom Thrush came idling by, pushing the broom with his bad hand. He began to sweep around my machine. “I done it, Miss Annie,” he said. “I done it just like you said. I seen him do it.”

I was excited. I wished I could run out of there; sit down with Tom and hear all about it. “What did he do? How did he do it?”

“Shush,” he said.

I lowered my voice. “Tell me.”

“Well, I slipped behind a tree, the way I always done, and as soon as they was safe inside the church I ran on back to the mill, and hid out in the slubbing room in the shadows behind the machines.”

“Were you scared?”

“Not a bit of it. He don't scare me.”

“It would have scared me,” I said. “Then what?”

“Well, I waited, and by and by I heard footsteps on the stairs a-headin' for the carding room. Oh, that was mighty scary.”

“I thought you said you weren't afraid of Mr. Hoggart.”

“Oh, what I meant to say was, it just gave me a start when he come along sudden like that. I wasn't what you would call scairt. It just gave me a start.”

“Oh,” I said.

“So I set there, a-waitin', and after a bit I heard him shufflin' and bumpin' around in that there carding room, like he was loadin' up a bag of wool.”

“And you crept over to the door and peeked, through the crack,” I said.

Tom blinked. “What kind of a blame fool do you think I am? I was shakin' enough just crouched down by the machines.”

That worried me. It wasn't going to be much use if he didn't see who was in that carding room. “I thought you said you weren't scared, only got a little start.”

“Oh, yes, that's about the size of it. I wasn't scairt, that wasn't it at all. Just nerved up a little.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “Then what?”

“Well, he went on bangin' and bumpin' around in there for a while, and then I heard his
footsteps
goin' on down the stairs.”

“And you jumped out and followed him to see where he went.”

Tom blinked again. “Why, Miss Annie, what on earth are you thinkin' of? I could hardly stand up, my legs was so trembly, to say nothin' of followin' him anywheres.”

It had all been a waste.

“So you don't know for sure that it was him?”

He blinked one more time. “Why, Miss Annie, who do you suppose it was?”

That was true enough—it had to be him. Nobody else would have dared to steal anything from there. But it wasn't any use—I had to know for sure, and I had to know where he was hiding the wool once he took it out of the mill. “Well, Tom, that's a mighty big help anyway. I expect we'll get him sooner or later.”

I knew now that I would have to do it myself. I should have known that Tom would mess it up some way. He'd spent all of his life being whipped and shouted at, and pushed here and there, and it had taken a lot of the heart out of him. He wanted to kill Mr. Hoggart—dreamed about it half the day, I reckoned—but it wasn't likely he'd actually do it.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

T
HE NEXT
S
UNDAY
the first snow came, light flakes dancing down onto the hard, dry ground. We walked to church with it blowing in our faces. “It's going to pile up,” George said. “I can feel it.”

“What we need is a sleigh,” Pa suddenly said. “Go to church in style and comfort.”

Ma gave him a look. “Best to get a horse first, I shouldn't wonder.”

“Yes,” Pa said. “Now that you mention it, I've got my eye on one. Edmund Wilkins has a fine animal he wants to sell. I think I might just do it. A first-rate saddle horse.”

I didn't pay any attention. That was just Pa talking. We'd walked to church through snow and rain and heat and cold all my life and it didn't seem likely it would ever be any different. I looked straight out at the snow dancing down. I liked it when the first snow came. Winter was hard, what with the cold coming through the walls of the house—so that you'd only be warm if you sat close to the fire—and traipsing around outside with your shoes wet through to the skin, and your hands red and chilled. But the first snow was always pretty. As soon as it piled up enough we'd get out sleds and go up the hill behind the Bronsons' house to play Running the Gauntlet. Some of us would go up top with the sleds and come down lickety-split, skidding and sliding this way and that. The rest of us would line up along the way with sticks, and try to tip the sleds over as they came shooting by. I liked it when the first snow came.

******

It snowed right on through the morning, but it began to taper off around noon, when we were all gathered in the church barn eating our dinners, and by the time the second service ended it had stopped snowing. But it had come down hard, and there was a good foot of snow on the ground, and drifts two feet deep in places. We stood out front of the church looking at it, nothing but white on the fields as far as we could see, crisscrossed with stone walls. Here and there was a piece of woods, fat black lines against the snow. Dusk was coming and the color was going out of the world, leaving it all black and white. “I don't see any point in Annie's trudging home through his now and turning around tomorrow morning to go through it again to get to the mill,” Ma said. “Why don't you spend the night at Hetty Brown's?”

Well, I liked that idea. But the Browns had already started off for home, so I said good-bye and set off after them, going as quick as I could up the road in hopes of catching up with them. It was getting pretty dark now, but some horses had gone along the road, and a couple of sleighs, as
well
as people walking, and the snow had got packed down some, and it was easy enough going. Up ahead I could see little bits of light coming from the mills and the lodging houses, and beyond that other bits of light from the houses around the village green. I kept on walking, and by and by I came to where the mill road turned off, to run alongside the creek to the two mills facing each other on the banks.

Something flashed across my mind, and I stopped walking. I looked down the mill road, taking it all in—the snowy mill road with a couple of lines of footprints going along it, the river black as tar, and the dark mills, silent except for the creaking and groaning of the waterwheels.

My heart began to beat fast. How much time did I have? The Browns didn't know I was supposed to be catching up with them. They wouldn't think anything if I was a little late getting there, for they weren't expecting me anyway. I took a deep breath, and then I began to trot down the mill road toward the mill. In a minute I came up to the front of the mill. I dashed around the side, heading toward the back. At the corner, right near the long stairs coming down the back, I stopped and looked out. Out back was the mill woodlot. Between the mill and the woodlot was a meadow about a hundred yards across. The meadow was a white blanket. It was untouched, except for a path of footprints running through the snow out to the woodlot. Mr. Hoggart had been out there at least twice, as much as I could tell from the footprints in the dusk.

I knew I had to get to the Browns' house soon, or they'd wonder why it had taken so long to come from church. I looked out across the white field with the line of footprints running across it. It was the best chance I'd ever get. So I took another deep breath and began to run across the white field in the moonlight, trying to step in the old footprints as much as I could, so it wouldn't seem that anybody had followed them.

I felt naked and scared. It was still light enough so you could see a person against the snow. Mr. Hoggart didn't live in the mill. He had his own house down the road a ways. But there was no telling where he might be, and if he looked out a window onto the field where I was, he'd know in two seconds who it was running along his footprints.

I kept on running. The woods came closer. I could see a good ways into them. I ran on, and then I plunged in among the trees. I was a lot safer there. I went in about six steps, stopped, and looked back. There was no sign of a human being, nobody anywhere. I caught my breath, and then I plunged on, following the footprints where they led. Now I was deep in the woodlot. On I went, and within a couple of minutes, I began to see through the trees a shadowy square.

I slowed down, and then stopped and squinted my eyes to look ahead. It was a shed or a cabin. I began to move forward again, now slipping carefully from tree to tree. In a moment I came to the cabin. It looked like a large tool shed of some kind. There were no windows, and only a small door shut tight. I slipped around behind it. Still no windows, and no windows on the other side either. I guess it had been built as a shed for woodcutters to lock their tools in when they went home
at
night. You could store a fair amount of wool in it too.

I stood there, wondering how I could get a look in it to see if there really was wool in it, when I heard a thump, and a bang from inside. I jumped, and then froze still, my heart racing. I listened. There was another thump and a curse. I turned to run, about to head off through the woods by the shortest distance to the road. Just as I put my foot down, I remembered: I'd make a track of footprints as clear as day going out of there. He'd know somebody had been outside while he was in there.

Should I wait until he left? No, I couldn't do that, for I'd already made a track of prints all the way around the shack. There was only one thing to do. I began to run off the way I'd come, along the old footprints. And what would happen if he came out right behind me? He wouldn't be running. He'd be coming along easy; but would he get to the edge of the woods before I got across the field? I began to pray.

Then I came to the edge of the woods. I turned around to listen. It seemed to me I heard the sound of a door shutting, and a key clinking. I dashed out of the woods into the snowy field, moving my legs as fast as I could go, faster and faster along that line of footprints. The mill came closer; I plunged for it, dove around the corner, and dropped flat into the snow. Then I twisted around and looked back. Mr. Hoggart was just coming out of the woods. I didn't wait, but ran on down the length of the mill, out the mill road, and onto the village road.

Had he seen me? I didn't know. He'd have only got a glimpse of me, but that might have been enough. I didn't think he could have seen who it was diving around that corner. But if he'd seen someone spying on him, he'd have a pretty good guess as to who it was. I ran off to Hetty Brown's house as quick as I could manage.

******

But Mr. Hoggart didn't come around for a couple of days, and I rested easier. In the meanwhile, I got a chance to talk to Robert. Mr. Hoggart had got him carrying yarn down out of our part of the mill, and sometimes he could swing through the slubbing room and talk to me. He looked dreadful; it was hard enough for him to get up and down a flight of stairs by himself, much less carrying a huge bundle of yarn. “He's trying to kill you,” I said. “He wants to work you to death.”

“It isn't as bad as all that,” Robert said. “I'm getting used to it.”

“He thinks I'm sweet on you, and he's afraid of what you might know from being tally boy. He wants to kill you.”

“Don't exaggerate, Annie. It isn't that bad. He wants me to quit.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Anyway, I found out where he's hiding the wool.”

“What?”

So I told him the whole story, of seeing the footprints through the snow behind the mill, and tracking them to the shack in the woods.

“That was a foolish risk, Annie. He'd have beaten the daylights out of you if he'd caught you. He might have killed you.”