y to think of clocks without minute hands, doesn't it?"
Christopher mused.

"Not so funny when you consider what life was at that time and how
poorly equipped the public was in arithmetic. Many of them knew nothing
of hours or quarter hours. But when the chimes in the village church
played a different tune each day of the week--a tune they knew--they
soon came to understand, for example, that the Blue Bells of Scotland
meant Tuesday, and that Annie Laurie, perhaps, meant Thursday."

"You do get horribly mixed on the days of the week when you have no
calendar and nothing especial to do," asserted Christopher quickly. "I
remember once when I was in the Maine woods with dad, we both got so
confused we hadn't a notion what day it was."

"Ah, then you have some understanding of the dilemma of your long-ago
ancestors," smiled McPhearson, "and can comprehend why they were so
thankful to have the cathedral clock set them right. Noblemen who owned
outlying castles would send their servants to the village square, not
only to find out the hour but to learn of the sun, moon, stars, and the
religious feasts and fasts. For, you see, the majority of the clocks
were put up by the clergy for the purpose not only of regulating their
own monastic life, but to prod worshipers to remember the masses and
prescribed feasts of the abbeys.

"Later on when clocks and watches came into more general use, and the
making of them was done by artisans instead of monks, time-keeping
passed out of the hands of the Church (just as the printing of books did
later on) and into the hands of guild members and manufacturers. It was
when this change became effective that the character of clocks shifted
very materially. The religious figures disappeared together with the
elaborate pantomimes that accompanied them, and the clockmakers directed
their energies to making the clock primarily a time-telling agency.
However, all that was not accomplished in a minute, and when you go
abroad, as you will some day, and see some of the quaint old clocks with
their procession of Biblical figures, just remember how it was they
happened to be made, and what interesting curiosities they are."

"I'm afraid by the time I ever get to Europe there won't be any such
clocks to be seen," sighed Christopher.

"Oh, yes, there will! You will see, for example, the great clock of
Straasburg. Not, to be sure, the original one, for that was made in
1352; neither will you view its suc