clocks. But it
was Massachusetts that was Connecticut's strong second."

"And what was being done there?"

McPhearson put down his drill.

"Were I to begin that story," protested he, "I should have no lunch
to-day and you would have none either. Maybe some other time--"

"To-morrow?" suggested Christopher, who had no intention of allowing
this prince of story-tellers to escape.

"Why, yes--to-morrow--if you are still of the same mind, you shall hear
the Massachusetts story."

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT MASSACHUSETTS CONTRIBUTED

Mr. McPhearson had no chance to forget his promise even had he been so
minded, for promptly the next morning, almost before his tools were laid
out on his bench, Christopher presented himself, announcing with a
mischievous smile:

"To-day, you know, you are going to tell me the clock history of
Massachusetts."

"Indeed I'm not," growled the Scotchman, who although flattered by the
demand, was unwilling to admit it. "History of Massachusetts! The very
idea!"

"I said the clock history," corrected Christopher, not a whit abashed.

"Did you? Well, even that is bad enough. What do you think I'm here for?
To play school-master?"

"Oh, no, indeed. Merely to serve as my private tutor," was the teasing
reply.

"That's your belief, is it! Egad, I begin to think it is," laughed the
clockmaker, amused at the lad's audacity. "Certainly your demand would
seem to bear out the theory."

"But you made the promise yourself--you can't have forgotten that."

"Forget it! Would I be likely to forget--would I so much as get the
chance, with you pestering me almost before my hat is off? Well, if I
was rash enough to make a promise like that, I see no way but to keep
it; so the Massachusetts clock story it shall be. It happens, too, that
you have asked for it at just the right moment, for to-day I am going to
work on as fine an old Willard clock as ever you saw. She is the real
thing!"

"Was Willard the first of the Massachusetts clockmakers?"

"Among the first; and undeniably one of the best and most important of
them. Oh, of course there were other men--some of them excellent. But we
know less about them because they left no such long trail of clocks
behind as the Willards did. Gawen Brown was a splendid workman; and so
was Avery, who in 1726 made the clock for the Old North church. Then
there was Benjamin Bagnall, who located in Charlestown about 1712 and
remained there almost thirty years.