The Clockmaker | Page 6

Mr. Slick"--for such was his name--"what a pity it is," said I, "that you, who are so successful in teaching these people the value of clocks, could not also teach them the value of time."
"I guess," said he, "they have got that ring to grow on their horns yet, which every four-year-old has in our country. We reckon hours and minutes to be dollars and cents. They do nothing in these parts but eat, drink, smoke, sleep, ride about, lounge at taverns, make speeches at temperance meetings, and talk about 'House of Assembly.' If a man don't hoe his corn, and he don't get a crop, he says it is all owing to the Bank; and if he runs into debt and is sued, why he says the lawyers are a curse to the country. They are a most idle set of folks, I tell you."
"But how is it," said I, "that you manage to sell such an immense number of clocks (which certainly cannot be called necessary articles), among a people with whom there seems to be so great a scarcity of money?" Mr. Slick paused, as if considering the propriety of answering the question, and looking me in the face, said in a confidential tone--
"Why, I don't care if I do tell you, for the market is glutted, and I shall quit this circuit. It is done by a knowledge of SOFT SAWDER and HUMAN NATUR'. But here is Deacon Flint's," said he; "I have but one clock left, and I guess I will sell it to him."
At the gate of a most comfortable looking farm house stood Deacon Flint, a respectable old man, who had understood the value of time better than most of his neighbours, if one might judge from the appearance of everything about him. After the usual salutation, an invitation to "alight" was accepted by Mr. Slick, who said he wished to take leave of Mrs. Flint before he left Colchester.
We had hardly entered the house, before the Clockmaker pointed to the view from the window, and, addressing himself to me, said, "if I was to tell them in Connecticut, there was such a farm as this away down east here in Nova Scotia, they wouldn't believe me--why there ain't such a location in all New England. The deacon has a hundred acres of dyke--"
"Seventy, said the deacon, only seventy."
"Well, seventy; but then there is your fine deep bottom, why I could run a ramrod into it--"
"Interval, we call it," said the Deacon, who, though evidently pleased at this eulogium, seemed to wish the experiment of the ramrod to be tried in the right place.
"Well, interval, if you please (though Professor Eleazer Cumstick, in his work on Ohio, calls them bottoms), is just as good as dyke. Then there is that water privilege, worth three or four thousand dollars, twice as good as what Governor Cass paid fifteen thousand dollars for. I wonder, Deacon, you don't put up a carding mill on it; the same works would carry a turning lathe, a shingle machine, a circular saw, grind bark, and--"
"Too old," said the Deacon, "too old for all those speculations--"
"Old," repeated the clockmaker, "not you; why you are worth half a dozen of the young men we see, nowadays; you are young enough to have--" Here he said something in a lower tone of voice, which I did not distinctly hear; but whatever it was, the Deacon was pleased, he smiled and said he did not think of such things now.
"But your beasts, dear me, your beasts must be put in and have a feed;" saying which, he went out to order them to be taken to the stable.
As the old gentleman closed the door after him, Mr. Slick drew near to me, and said in an undertone, "That is what I call 'SOFT SAWDER.' An Englishman would pass that man as a sheep passes a hog in a pasture, without looking at him; or," said he, looking rather archly, "if he was mounted on a pretty smart horse, I guess he'd trot away, if he could. Now I find--" Here his lecture on "SOFT SAWDER" was cut short by the entrance of Mrs. Flint.
"Jist come to say good-bye, Mrs. Flint."
"What, have you sold all your clocks?"
"Yes, and very low too, for money is scarce, and I wished to close the consarn; no, I am wrong in saying all, for I have just one left. Neighbour Steel's wife asked to have the refusal of it, but I guess I won't sell it; I had but two of them, this one and the feller of it, that I sold Governor Lincoln. General Green, the Secretary of State for Maine, said he'd give me forty dollars for this here one--it has composition wheels and patent axles,