"How--_in his company_?" asked the boy, glancing up quickly in puzzled surprise. "Oh, I don't know," was the vague retort. Nevertheless, as Mr. Burton turned his eyes away, Christopher noticed his father was smiling the meditative, enigmatic smile that he smiled once in a blue moon. It was usually when some particularly delightful reverie occupied his mind that his face took on that especial expression. The lad wondered what he was thinking about this time. CHAPTER XV CLOCKS IN AMERICA "Say, Mr. McPhearson, I wish you would tell me how clocks got to America," demanded Christopher when he and the old Scotchman were next together. "Of course the Pilgrim Fathers couldn't have brought them all." The watchmaker chuckled. "To hear folks boast about their ancestral possessions you would think the _Mayflower_ might also have brought a few hundred clocks in addition to all the bales of china, tables, chairs, and beds she is credited with transporting," replied he. "In point of fact, however, clocks did not reach these shores by any such romantic method. The early clockmakers came over here from England and Holland precisely as did other adventurous craftsmen. Often they were by trade gold or silversmiths who combined with other arts that of making clocks. As a result, while some of them were skilled horologers others merely turned out clocks as a side issue." "Most likely the people over here were thankful to get any clocks at all," the boy ventured. "Evidently there were clockmakers who worked on that theory," was McPhearson's dry answer. "Do not imagine, however, that I am condemning wholesale all the early clockmakers. On the contrary there were among them many really good workmen and every now and then a clock crops up that testifies to the skill of its dead-and-gone creator. Number Seventeen, for example, that you saw at Mr. Hawley's, was such a one. It was made, you remember, by John Bailey of Hanover, Massachusetts, and ever since the close of the eighteenth century it has ticked faithfully on, keeping excellent time. What more can you ask of a clock than that? And that is only one of many. Had we a complete list of all those early American makers, how interesting it would be! But, alas, they landed and scattered over the country, settling here and settling there, and with a few exceptions we can trace them only through town records. Two that have been successfully tracked down are William Davis, recorded as being in Boston in 1683; and Everardus Bogardus, who was located in New York in 1698. Also in 1707 there is mention of a James Patterson arriving from London and opening a Boston shop. Probably John Bailey, who was no doubt one of the clockmaking Baileys of Yorkshire, was a pioneer of a little later period. We can only list these men as we stumble upon their handiwork. Unfortunately, there are early clocks whose makers it is impossible to trace. A good many such timepieces were made for the