Cuckoo clock

“ She opened the door. All was quite dark. It was impossible to fly or run across the great saloon! Even in daylight this would have been a difficult matter. Griselda felt her way as best she could, past the Chinese cabinet and the pot-pourri jar, till she got to the ante-room door. It was open, and now, knowing her way better, she hurried in. But what was the use? All was silent, save the tick-tick of the cuckoo clock in the corner. Oh, if only the cuckoo would come out and call the hour as usual, what a weight would be lifted off Griselda's heart! ”

“ A dollar cuckoo clock is hardly less impressive or more ridiculous. A figure hacks with a sword at a figure complacently kneeling to receive the blow–that was all! But was it all? Was there not, behind the little 142figure, a background of bronze, a drop-curtain, so to speak? And on the background was there not something in bas-relief? I felt quite sure that there was, though the two automata must be the principal actors in the foolish scene. I jotted down as much as I could remember, and waited for three o’clock to strike.
But if the previous hour was disappointing, this was maddeningly so. ”

“ The cuckoo clock is a pretty piece of mechanism. By the push of a wire given to the body of the bird, it is bent forward, the wings and tail are raised and the beak opened. At the same time two weighted bellows measuring about 1 × 2 in. are raised and successively let drop. These are attached to small wooden organ pipes, one tuned a fifth above the other, which produce the notes. Phonographs are also attached to clocks, by which the hours are called instead of rung. ”

“ Bertha often visits a little friend who helps her father make cuckoo-clocks. Did you ever see one of these curious clocks? As each hour comes around, a little bird comes outside the case. Then it flaps its wings and sings "cuckoo" in a soft, sweet voice as many times as there are strokes to the hour. It is great fun to watch for the little bird and hear its soft notes.
Perhaps you wonder what makes the bird come out at just the right time. It is done by certain machinery inside the clock. But, however it is, old people as well as children seem to enjoy the cuckoo-clocks of Germany. ”

“ Suddenly two little doors above the clock face, which Griselda had not known were there, sprang open with a burst and out flew a cuckoo, flapped his wings, and uttered his pretty cry, "Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo!" Miss Grizzel counted aloud, "Seven, eight, nine, ten." "Yes, he never makes a mistake," she added triumphantly. "All these long years I have never known him wrong. There are no such clocks made nowadays, I can assure you, my dear." ”

“ The nearest we Americans can get to the English cuckoo is the abominable cuckoo clock. The voice of the English cuckoo sounds exactly like the clock, only of course you can’t train him to strike right. In addition to his regular accomplishment, he is a ventriloquist and can throw his voice a tremendous distance. One day, crossing a field in Sussex, I heard the loud double note of the cuckoo, apparently directly behind me. He was in reality a furlong away.
Wordsworth says ”

“ Nobody should argue; it's a shocking bad habit, and ruins the digestion. Come up here and sit beside me comfortably. Catch hold of the chain; you'll find you can manage if you try.
"But it'll stop the clock," said Griselda. "Aunt Grizzel said I was never to touch the weights or the chains."
"Stuff," said the cuckoo; "it won't stop the clock. Catch hold of the chains and swing yourself up. ”

“ How would you like a day a fortnight long, and nights to match? If it had been daytime here just now, I couldn't have brought you. It's just about the very middle of the night now, and in about a week of your days the sun will begin to rise, because, you see——"
"Oh, dear cuckoo, please don't explain!" cried Griselda. "I'll promise to ask Mr. Kneebreeches, I will indeed. In fact, he was telling me something just like it to-day or yesterday—which should I say?—at my astronomy lesson. ”

“ Paterfamilias was away when the clock came and was put up. He generally is away when anything really important happens. When he first noticed the clock he showed an immediate and lively interest in it. That in itself was a suspicious circumstance, had I but realized it. Pater has a large capacity for ignoring household exigencies. How often have I openly, not to say obtrusively, remarked upon sundry shutter-hinges hanging limply by one screw, or called attention to discouraged castors without exciting the least response. But with the cuckoo-clock it was different from the first. ”

“ You are always being brought here.’
“‘I can’t help it,’ said the Eight-Day Clock. ‘You see, I get so upset over not being wound up and I get so tired and worried wondering if my master will remember, that I get feeling run down. Then I weep a Clock’s tears, which only we Clocks and Watches know about. We feel so badly when we are not treated right. And then when we feel badly it upsets our works and we have to be brought to the clock mender’s shop. But I wish we could teach our masters a lesson,’ said the Eight-Day Clock.
“‘We will,’ said the Cuckoo Clock. ”

“ It was only four o'clock striking, and as soon as he had told it the cuckoo was back behind his doors again in an instant, just as usual. There was nothing for Griselda to feel offended at, but somehow she got quite angry.
"I don't care what you think, cuckoo!" she exclaimed defiantly. "I know you came out on purpose just now, but I don't care. I do hate winter, and I do hate lessons, and I do think it would be nicer to be a butterfly than a little girl." ”

“ The story is of two girls, each named Rose, the one rich and the other poor; and tells how they were brought together, and the influence they exercised upon each other, and relates, in a very pleasant way, the various adventures, sayings, and doings of their brothers and sisters.
THE CUCKOO CLOCK, by Ennis Graham, author of "Carrots" and "Tell me a Story"; published by Macmillan & Co. This volume is well illustrated by Walter Crane. The cuckoo in an old clock makes friends with a lonely little girl, and causes her to have a good time, and to see many wonderful things. ”

“ The clock is going on, but the cuckoo has not told the hours, and Dorcas is of opinion that he left off doing so yesterday. What can be going to happen? What shall we do?"
"What can we do?" said Miss Tabitha. "Should we send for the watch-maker?"
Miss Grizzel shook her head.
"'Twould be worse than useless. Were we to search the world over, we could find no one to put it right. Fifty years and more, Tabitha, fifty years and more, it has never missed an hour! We are getting old, Tabitha, our day is nearly over ”

“ Occasionally, it came out at odd times, and then remained indoors altogether. When that happened for a more than usually long period, it was sure to be because the poor Cuckoo felt indisposed in its bellows; and when it became apparent that something had gone wrong with the inmate of the Clock-House, an entrance had to be effected by the back door and a dose of oil administered. Whereupon the front door would fly open and the Cuckoo appear again on the threshold—it never ventured further—bow to the multitude, or to empty space, and pipe "Cuc—koo!" ”

“ Why, I never dreamed there was so much to clockmaking!" gasped the astonished Christopher.
"Oh, the making of a finely adjusted, close-running clock is far more of a science than a trade, laddie. It isn't just making a lot of wheels that will turn, hands that will point, or a mechanism that will tick—wonderful as all that is," asserted McPhearson.
"I don't believe most persons realize it isn't."
"Those who dip below the surface and are better informed know the truth; as for the others—we must not expect too much of a hurrying world, son. ”

“ Such creatures do not deserve to have clocks. They should have lived when there weren't any."
"Back in the thirteenth century, you mean?" queried Christopher, not unwilling to display his knowledge.
"Oh, they were just beginning to get them by that time," McPhearson objected instantly. "By the fourteenth century there were clocks that really began to be clocks. In 1326, for example, the [72] Abbott of St. Albans made a marvelous clock which not only showed the course of the sun and moon but the ebb and flow of the tide. In the meantime more big clocks began to be put up on the church towers. ”

“ Happily the clock has not received the attention of the modern sensation-monger. We are left with the heritage of the past undisturbed. He may gibe at the paint and canvas of old masters, he may deride the grace of the Greek in sculpture, but the simple mechanism of the clock symbolizing "the inaudible and noiseless foot of Time" mocks the charlatan of a little day, with oblivion tracking his scurrying heels.
The name of lantern clock may puzzle the modern collector, but its shape followed the lantern of the period, and, like the lantern, it was made to hang on the wall. ”

“ Then, too, it isn't always possible to find people who understand repairing such old fellows," McPhearson explained modestly. "As I said, they have to be taken as special cases and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now."
Gently the man put his burden on the workbench.
It was a square clock with arched top and brass feet; and its face, suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with garlands of red roses. ”

“ While the superstition did prevail, there was nothing so calculated to strike terror to the very marrow of the appalled listeners as the noise of this harmless little beetle, only a quarter of an inch long, tapping away in the decaying woodwork of an ancient wainscot.
There is no end of legendary matter concerning clocks. Sometimes nervous people have been frightened half out of their wits at hearing a clock that had stopped, suddenly strike the hour. Clocks have been known to stop, too, at the exact hour when a death took place in the house. ”

“ Christopher responded.
"You'd think so, and so would I if I had not handled so many and learned otherwise. No, every clock has its personality, its little tricks. One doesn't like a cold room, perhaps, and as a protest will stop or lose time; another shows its disapproval of the heat by being ten minutes fast. Still another balks at an incline in the mantelpiece, so slight that nobody can see it, and will not tick even. ”

“ His handiwork cannot be surpassed," exclaimed McPhearson with enthusiasm. "People are liable to associate him only with the banjo clock that bears his name; but in reality he made clocks of every imaginable description—long-case clocks, tower clocks, gallery clocks, shelf clocks. He was a born clock lover if ever there was one! He was, moreover, a marvelous man who up to the end of his long life was active and useful. Even after he became very old he fought to conceal the limitations age brought and remain cheerful and independent. A wonderful example of lusty manhood, truly! ”

“ The “dead beat” escapement is shown in Fig. 29, and is used in clocks of a high grade, generally with a seconds pendulum. It has no recoil as you can easily see that the surfaces O O on which the teeth fall, are portions of a circle around the center P. The beveled ends of these pallets are called the impulse surfaces, and a tooth is just giving the little push on the right-hand pallet. It is found in good railroad clocks, watch-makers' regulators and in many astronomical clocks. These terms are merely comparative, a “regulator” being a good clock and an “astronomical,” an extra good one. ”

“ Graham, however, concentrated most of his skill on watches while Tompion put the major part of his talent into long-case clocks which were unrivaled. For, by this time, with the gradual development and improvement of clock machinery, it was possible to make grandfather, or long-case, clocks that kept excellent time. The defects of the old wheel escapement of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries were, as I told you, remedied in part by the invention of the fusee, a device for equalizing the movement. ”

“ Besides these several trademarks there are in addition various ingenious tricks that belonged to Willard and to nobody else. These a trained clockmaker instantly recognizes—the use of brass pins to hold the dial in place, for one thing. So, you see, when a banjo clock comes your way there are various methods by which its genuineness can be tested. They cannot, perhaps, be rated as infallible but they do help in identification. ”

“ Londoners could not afford to lose their trains, be late to their appointments, or miss their tea." The Scotchman uttered a soft laugh.
"Yes," continued he, as if the fancy pleased him, "when you are posted up in such a conspicuous spot as that, every one of your backslidings will [153] be common property. And for that reason not only the reputation of the clock itself but that of its maker was at stake. Moreover, since the height at which the dial was to be set was so great, every part of the timepiece had to be of mammoth size."
"Of course it had," agreed Christopher. ”

“ As timekeepers they never can bear comparison with the later type with the long pendulum. They stand as examples of early clockmaking, with fine brass dials, with artistic appearance, simple and unpretentious, but lacking the real scientific application of further developed principles of a succeeding period.
A clock that could only be used as a bracket clock or a wall clock with weights beneath hardly filled the requirements of an age when domestic furniture demanded luxury and exquisite taste. ”