e, never once in its life had it to be set to
rights by a clockmaker. My father kept it in order himself, he had an
inborn talent for clock work. Every year on the Eve of Passover, he
deliberately took it down from the wall, dusted the wheels with a
feather brush, removed from its inward part a collection of spider webs,
desiccated flies, which the spiders had lured in there to their
destruction, and heaps of black cockroaches, which had gone in of
themselves, and found a terrible end. Having cleaned and polished it, he
hung it up again on the wall and shone, that is, they both shone: the
clock shone because it was cleaned and polished, and my father shone
because the clock shone.

And it came to pass one day that something happened.

It was on a fine, bright, cloudless day; we were all sitting at table,
eating breakfast, and the clock struck. Now I always loved to hear the
clock strike and count the strokes out loud:

"One--two--three--seven--eleven--twelve--thirteen! Oi! _Thirteen?_"

"Thirteen?" exclaimed my father, and laughed. "You're a fine
arithmetician (no evil eye!). Whenever did you hear a clock strike
thirteen?"

"But I tell you, it _struck_ thirteen!"

"I shall give you thirteen slaps," cried my father, angrily, "and then
you won't repeat this nonsense again. Goi, a clock _cannot_ strike
thirteen!"

"Do you know what, Simcheh," put in my mother, "I am afraid the child is
right, I fancy I counted thirteen, too."

"There's another witness!" said my father, but it appeared that he had
begun to feel a little doubtful himself, for after the meal he went up
to the clock, got upon a chair, gave a turn to a little wheel inside the
clock, and it began to strike. We all counted the strokes, nodding our
head at each one the while:
one--two--three--seven--nine--twelve--thirteen.

"Thirteen!" exclaimed my father, looking at us in amaze. He gave the
wheel another turn, and again the clock struck thirteen. My father got
down off the chair with a sigh. He was as white as the wall, and
remained standing in the middle of the room, stared at the ceiling,
chewed his beard, and muttered to himself:

"Plague take thirteen! What can it mean? What does it portend? If it
were out of order, it would have stopped. Then, what can it be? The
inference can only be that some spring has gone wrong."

"Why worry whether it's a spring or not?" said my mother. "You'd better
take down the clock and put it to rights, as you've a t