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Local Clockmaker Struck by Lightning

God’s claw jolted down and scorched Wayman where he perched on his scaffold against the steeple. He’d been done repairing the clock for a day, but he promised to play the jack and whitewash the tower while he had the skeleton of timbers assembled.

He come from swamp seed but grew hilly right quick and already was beginning to carry on in kind of a native spruce or bobcat way. He was a worker, but he’d risk a tipple, time to time. Then was when his queerness would come out, niddling on about how a clock was a home’s heart, about all that brass and wood adding up to a soul, if the measurements were easy and the pendulum smooth. Some might laugh. Then he’d show his temper. Didn’t hold with interruptions. You’d not want to trifle him long. But he’d hardly charge you to save a watch or fix some other gizmo.

Some said the girl was his by a sister down in Carolina, and it kicked up a swirl of needly gossip for a spell. In the end, folks went don’t-carish. He kept the hearts of big houses regular and twiddled more than one railroad watch back into use. He was fair complected, blue of iris, nearabout angel-featured. The girl, she was smart, eyes dark as a blackberry, hair to put a crow’s feathers to shame. Molly she was called.

That winter it was so cold the hens’ combs went black, the flood summer, season of locusts, year of overflowing silos and cribs. That was all we had him.

Like I say, he was fond of applejack, and I should mention the Old Testament stories with giants and fiery foxes and pharaohs, which he loved to yarn. He was a queer one. Then of a sudden, he laid there on the snow, his clothes a-smoking, snow melting back to make a shape around him like a coaling ground. Some said a “sign.” Old woman Rath saw a devil. I saw a fresh scar down his cheek like a knife fight, but Seth Showalter swore it was the spit and image of that lightning bolt that hit the brass cross at the steeple’s peak and ran straight on to him. Like Seth would know.

I was in Wayman’s shop once to see could he put the breath of life back into my granny’s nurse watch. I reckoned I’d been struck near blind by the clean of it, tools all lined up neat like an army and rubbed bright. They was a lavish of clocks on the walls, but I couldn’t abide them, tocking together like a parade. Too much of the army for me, and they’d took my Jim in a brown uniform, never brought him back. Old Wayman, though, he charmed that watch. Cost me two bits, and he put a polish on the case. I cherish it still.

They went quick to work, and pretty soon he was a man in black, the open coffin stood up at Woodrow’s store so folks could view easy. It put me in mind of a deacon standing inside a hall clock, sleeping, but he was not known to be keen on sleep.

So they had to tell her. Mink did. She’d been to market and was back in two days, spindly thing like her taking that trail on her lonesome, but she was a spirited sort. And soon as she knew, she put up a weepfest fit to beat any widow. Weeds and ashes, the mirrors all masked up. Didn’t we wonder how long before all them timepieces would have give up the ghost, the springs slack, beginning to harvest dust? But in a month that gal threw off the mourning and started taking in clocks. She had the knack and the eye. If Wayman ever had something to answer for in front of the Final Judge, it wasn’t that Molly.

I carried her a pie and some rabbit stew, but I don’t know if she ever so much as took a taste. I felt obliged. Arsh taters and carrots, onion, a strong slash of flour, pepper a-plenty and mushy peas. The pie was stamens, cinnamon and ample cloves, the good brown sugar and round as a clock’s face. She was all manners when she took it, but I don’t know as she ate it. I was sure I’d mixed and timed it perfect. I’d made a pair, had a taste myself. I’m here to tell you, spite the circumstances, it was almighty spicy sweet.