Christopher and the Clockmakers.
by Sara Ware Ba.s.sett.
CHAPTER I
A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING
Christopher Mark Antony Burton was a tremendously imposing name to give a baby. When he lay in his crib, wee and helpless, he looked as if he might never survive the weight of it. Even later, when he began to toddle about on his small, unsteady feet, the sonorous pseudonym trailed in his wake, threatening to drag him down to an early grave.
Nevertheless his father protested against the burden being lightened one iota. Christopher Mark Antony Burton he had been christened and Christopher Mark Antony Burton he must remain. Had it not been his father"s, his grandfather"s, and his great-grandfather"s name before him; and all his life had not Mr. Burton longed for some one to whom to pa.s.s on the treasure of which he was so proud? And then on a happy day a son came upon the scene and _presto_, before the boy was an hour old, the ponderous appellation was clapped on his unlucky head.
Mr. Burton, however, did not consider the child unlucky--not he! To bestow this signal honor afforded him infinite satisfaction. No gift he could have granted his heir could, in his opinion, equal--much less surpa.s.s--this one.
He had, to be sure, on the day of the baby"s birth, deposited in the savings bank five hundred dollars to its credit; but what was money when weighed against being Christopher Mark Antony Burton, the fourth?
And Christopher had thrived despite the fact that life, no respecter of persons, did not spare him the misfortunes common to the race. He had whooping cough, measles, and mumps like other children, and when at length he reached the ripened age of six he was led to school and it was here, with one swift, leveling blow, that his splendor vanished even as the gra.s.s which in the morning groweth up and at night is cut down, and withereth.
He issued forth from his home as Christopher Mark Antony Burton and returned to it shorn of his glories and as plain Chris Burton. Was ever transformation more complete? Certainly not in the estimation of his father and mother. But Chris himself was overjoyed at the emanc.i.p.ation.
It seemed as if a ball had been lifted from his foot and left him free as air. And the wonderful part of it was that the operation had been so quickly and painlessly accomplished. It had taken a round-faced, red-haired urchin just about fifteen seconds to sever his bonds.
"Christopher Mark Antony Burton!" jibed he with sardonic glee. "Haw, haw! Can you beat it? Cut it out, Chris."
Whereupon a group of derisive youngsters had proceeded without further ado to cut it out.
"Chris Burton! Chris Burton!" they piped, capering gleefully about their victim.
Christopher"s consent to this re-christening was not asked. The name would have been cut in the same ruthless fashion whether he willed it or not. Fortunately, however, he welcomed his release, and this cheerful conformity to public sentiment earned for him at the outset of his career vast popularity.
"Chris is all right," conceded his judges. "Poor kid! Is it his fault if they pasted a mile-long label on him?"
Indeed common opinion generally agreed that the unhappy victim of the Burton honors was far more sinned against than sinning, and his cause was forthwith taken up with zealous sympathy.
"They didn"t do a thing to you, you poor trout, when they wished that tag on you, did they?" Billie Earnshaw, the leader of the gang, declared not unkindly. "No matter, old chap! Cheer up! Forget it! We"re going to."
And they did. As completely as if the awful appellation had never existed it was wiped from the tablets of their memory and Christopher Mark Antony Burton fourth became Chris Burton--nothing more.
Oh, there were days when the original horror bobbed up. It appeared on report cards and in school registers traced in the teacher"s clear, painstaking hand: _Christopher Mark Antony Burton_; nevertheless she never troubled to address him in that fashion. Perhaps she hadn"t the time. Life was a busy enterprise and the days were short. One could not stop to roll out a name like that unless blessed with leisure.
Accordingly in the schoolroom our hero pa.s.sed as Burton and on the ball-field as Chris, and since his existence alternated "twixt these two worlds, he was Christopher Mark Antony Burton only at breakfast and at bed-time--intervals so brief that they were endured with cheerfulness and complacency.
Therefore having rid himself thus early in his career of a stigma that threatened to blast his chance for success, the future stretched before him smooth as a macadam road. Uneventfully he finished the grammar school and went on into the high school as did other boys of his acquaintance. He was not, however, a scholar who leaped avidly toward books. Painfully, reluctantly he trudged his way. Learning came hard--especially Latin, French, and history. To hold fast a French verb was for him a thousand times harder than to grip in his clutch a writhing eel; and as for algebra--well, the unknown quant.i.ty was the only one he was sure of.
Yet notwithstanding his scholastic limitations, he contrived to wriggle along until at the beginning of his junior year he was whisked away to the hospital with scarlet fever, after which, amid sage waggings of their heads, a group of doctors congregated about his bed. He was not to be alarmed, they said. His eyes were not permanently injured. Yet there was no denying his illness had seriously weakened them and they must be given a long vacation. Perhaps six months might do what was necessary--perhaps, on the other hand, it might take a year. Rest was the thing needed--absolute rest and protection from the light.
Whereupon, having delivered themselves of this decree, they placed upon his nose a pair of blue goggles, told him to cheer up, and went their way.
At first the tragedy on which they commiserated him did not appear to Christopher very great. He detested books. Now, without effort of his own, he was to be released from them. It was almost too good to be true.
Had he begged the boon on bended knees, his parents would have denied it. And now, as if by magic, the favor he sought had been granted without so much as a word from them. The law had been laid down so forcefully that neither they nor he dared disobey it.
In fact it was soon apparent they felt vastly sorry on Christopher"s account that the mandate had been p.r.o.nounced. Everybody did. Ill news travels as if on wings, and before the boy had been home a day the entire community was offering him sympathy for a calamity which did not seem to him any calamity at all.
True, he detested his blue gla.s.ses and would gladly have consigned them to the ash barrel. Still no sky is without shadows; one must take the cake as well as the frosting. Certainly he found it no cross to rise in leisurely fashion while the other kids were hiking along to school and sit down to a hot breakfast cooked especially for him; nor, when the bells were just about ringing for recitations, could it be considered a hardship to saunter off for a tramp in the sunshine, with Joffre, his tireless collie, bounding on before him.
No, his lot was far from an unhappy one. For a week or two he was entirely content. Of course there was no denying there were moments that dragged. He couldn"t read, and he had always derived keen delight from a good pirate story. However, people read to him, and that was the next best thing. Often his father or his mother would toss aside their books or papers and read aloud to him an entire evening. But the books they selected were never pirate stories. Instead they were almost always things that aimed to improve him, and if there was anything Christopher resented, it was being improved. Therefore while he appreciated the good intentions of his parents in reading and explaining to him Emerson"s essays, he would as lief have exchanged all of them for a single chapter of "Treasure Island." But, alas, his father was not of the "Treasure Island" sort, and neither was his mother. Indeed it is doubtful whether they would have recognized Silver had they met him in broad daylight, on the main street. As for himself he missed Silver sadly--Silver, Deerslayer, and all the rest of his cronies, and before long time began to hang heavily on his hands.
Elversham was, it is true, a beautiful suburb in which to live. Still, there wasn"t much doing in it. If your day was not filled with school, baseball, football, or building a radio, how was a chap to fill up his time? He could, of course, go down to the athletic field and watch the games, but as he was accustomed to being in the thick of them, he derived no great pleasure from sitting about on the edges and looking on, while others fumbled the ball or failed to make a touchdown. What a pity it was that when he had dropped out of school he had been obliged to sacrifice his position on the team! Still how could any one be mixed up in a football tackle if he had to wear blue gla.s.ses every minute?
No, for the present he must certainly keep out of athletics. He was, in fact, pretty well out of everything. When he joined the fellows, it was only to hear them joshing about some event wholly unintelligible to him.
All their jokes and horse play led back to the cla.s.sroom until at length he felt as if he might as well have listened to a lot of jibbering Chinese as to try to understand their nonsense.
Yes, he was out of it--completely out of it! Gradually the realization dawned on him. He was out of everything, the only idle person in a rushing world. When he took a walk, except for the companionship of Joffre, he went alone. Everybody was too busy to pay any attention to him. He was bored with his own society--horribly bored.
"Isn"t there anything I can do, Dad?" he desperately inquired one evening, after his mother had all but read him to sleep with the life of Benjamin Franklin.
"What do you mean, son?" asked Mr. Burton, dropping his paper and emerging abruptly from Wall Street, his attention arrested more by the lad"s tone than by his words.
"I mean isn"t there anything at all I can do? I"m sick to death of loafing round this house."
"But I thought you were rather pleased to be out of school," Mr. Burton a.s.serted with surprise.
"I was at first--pleased as Punch; but I"m not now. I"m bored within an inch of my life. I can"t keep tramping round with Joffre from morning to night, nor is there anywhere to go if I could. Besides, I haven"t a soul to speak to--everybody is studying or else playing football."
"It is hard, Christopher," agreed his mother with instant sympathy. "You have been very patient."
"So you have, my boy! So you have!" Mr. Burton echoed. "I had no idea, however, that you were unhappy. Well, well! We must see what can be done."
He rose and began to pace the floor thoughtfully.
"Now if I could afford it," he went on, "I should pack you off on a trip round the world. That would not only amuse you royally but afford you a liberal education into the bargain; but I haven"t the money to do that just now, I"m afraid. Some more modest entertainment must be found. H-m!
I don"t suppose as a makeshift you would care to go into the store with me for a week or two until a better plan can be devised."
The lad"s face instantly brightened.
"Yes, I would," he cried. "I"d like it very much." Although the scheme was not a brilliant one, it was far better than hanging about Elversham day after day. To go to the city would mean new sights, new sounds, and doubtless luncheon with his father--a treat to which he had always looked forward since a small boy.
"Really now!" commented Mr. Burton, beaming down at him. "Well, I am surprised. I feared you would not even listen to the proposal. So you like it, eh? Oh, not for long, of course--I understand that; but simply as a filler."
Christopher was all cordiality.
"It wouldn"t be half bad."
"Don"t imagine I shall set you to work," continued Mr. Burton hastily.
"I"d rather work if there was anything I could do."
"I am afraid there wouldn"t be," was the reply. "Ours is a trade that has, for the most part, to be learned."
"I suppose so."