"I asked Dad last night why he didn't have a Willard clock here in the store instead of the one we've got," confided Christopher to McPhearson the next morning, "and he was quite sore about it. He said that in the first place a balcony clock of Willard make would cost a fortune and probably could not be bought, anyway; and then he added that we already had a Jim-dandy clock made by one of the Willard apprentices. I didn't get the chance to ask him what he meant by that."

"Our clock is a Howard, one of the best makes there is," McPhearson explained. "Years ago Edward Howard, the founder of the Howard Clock Company, began clockmaking as a pupil of Aaron Willard, Junior. Howard was a boy of only sixteen at the time, and for five years he studied clocks under this excellent tutelage. Do not imagine, however, that this balcony clock of ours was made by Mr. Howard himself. What your father meant was that built into the background of the Howard Company were the Willard traditions and ideas."

"Then really Aaron Willard hadn't much to do with our clock," remarked Christopher, disappointment in his voice.

"Not directly, no. Still you have no cause for complaint on that score. The Howard clock is a more modern product, that is all. Mr. Howard, like Mr. Willard, left his imprint on both the American clock and watch industries, holding for years a very unique place in their development. Moreover he founded a great business that now gives to us clocks of almost every design. Many are for the interiors of public buildings such as halls, stores, churches, offices, and railway stations. Others are for towers or steeples. Some have illuminated dials and some are electric watch clocks. Therefore do not waste your tears lamenting that your father does not possess an old Willard balcony clock. It would be an interesting thing to own, I don't deny that; but what you already have is as good a timepiece as can be procured anywhere. No one blushes for a Howard clock or needs to blush. Mr. Howard, along with Willard, deserves great credit for building up this successful business of his, for when he began it he started out all by himself in a little shop not over thirty feet square."

"It's a wonderful thing to found a big business, isn't it?" reflected Christopher.

"Yes, to set going a flourishing industry that not only provides bread and butter for hundreds of workmen but also furnishes the public with a well-made commodity that it needs is a great service to civilization," said McPhearson. "Edward Howard, as I told you, had a generous part in doing this, not only in the clock world but also in the realm of watches."

"How did he connect up with the watches?"

"Well, you see, early America had very few watchmakers," was the reply. "There were, it is true, numerous persons who dubbed themselves watchmakers and who, like myself, could repair a watch; but they could not make one. Therefore watchmaking as an industry did not exist in this country. So about 1850 Mr. Aaron Dennison, a Boston watch repairer, conceived the idea of starting such a business. Already he had discussed plans with Edward Howard, and now the two men entered into partnership and after raising considerable capital they constructed a small factory in Roxbury. To fully appreciate the difficulties of their venture, you must keep in mind the fact that previous to this time watchmaking had never been conducted along modern lines. There was no such thing in the world as a factory system where every part of a watch was made beneath one roof. Instead, as I believe I told you, watches were made in different places—the wheels at the home of one man, the springs at that of another, and so on, after which the various parts were assembled, put together, and adjusted. This was the plan followed in France, England, and Switzerland, and the one which with certain modifications is to a great extent still followed in those countries. And in our own land there was not even as much of a system as that, watches being made on a very small scale by individual workmen. It was this scheme of affairs that Aaron Dennison and Edward Howard determined to change."

"They took some contract on their hands, I should say."

"A bigger contract than you realize, son," the Scotchman answered. "A bigger one than they fully realized, I guess. It is fortunate we do not see all our obstacles when we set forth on an undertaking, for if we did many an enterprise would be abandoned before it was even begun. These two men, now—in the first place they had no machinery; nor was there any to be bought. Moreover, there was nothing to pattern watch machinery after. It had never been made. So, you see, it was one thing to give a man tools and leave him to achieve with them a specified end, working toward the desired result as he went along; and quite another to invent a brainless device that would mechanically reach the same end. Numberless difficulties must be overcome. To manufacture watches in quantity it was imperative that the parts be interchangeable. They must not vary even an infinitesimal degree or the whole delicate organism would be thrown out of adjustment. It was not an industry where hit-or-miss methods could be glossed over; on the contrary, every part of the process must be absolutely accurate. Do you wonder people were skeptical as to the possibility of making such a mad undertaking a success and hesitated about putting money into it?"

"I suppose the public rated it a wildcat scheme," responded Christopher.

"Yes, it seemed very impractical to business men. When you have to build up a factory system from the machinery itself, you have something gigantic on your hands. And that is the task on which Mr. Dennison and Mr. Howard embarked. I suppose nobody will ever appreciate the trials those dauntless pioneers went through. Four years they worked in their Roxbury factory and only had a few hundred watches to show for all their toil. Nevertheless the experience taught them many things and chief among these was the fact that they must have more room. Accordingly in 1854 they put up a new factory at Waltham, Massachusetts, and it is this structure, standing to this day, that was the first building of the Waltham Watch factory."

"So the Waltham Watch factory is the grandfather of all the others, is it?" commented Christopher.

"It is both the oldest and the largest," declared McPhearson. "It also is the place where the factory system of watch manufacture had its beginning. The general disbelief of the public was, however, a great obstacle to the prosperity of the infant enterprise. Often both Mr. Dennison and Mr. Howard were bitterly disheartened. The outlay for constructing machinery, buying materials, and experimenting licked up capital with terrifying rapidity. Had not two Boston men, Mr. Samuel Curtis and Mr. Charles Rice, had faith enough to back the project financially, it certainly would have gone to pieces. Even as it was quantities of money were sunk before any results were forthcoming. The parts of a watch are so small and so delicate that to produce machinery that would make them and make them so that one did not vary from another by so much as a hair-breadth—well, there were moments when it seemed almost futile to try to do it. For, you know, if any part of a watch is even so much as one five-thousandth of an inch out of the way, it is good-by to the watch. It won't go—that is all!"

"I had no idea such a variation as that would count for anything," gasped his listener. "Why, it must have been terrible to figure machinery down to that point! I shouldn't think Mr. Dennison or Mr. Howard would ever have wanted to look at another watch."

"I imagine there were times when they didn't," was McPhearson's grave response. "But for all that they persisted. Fortunately they made a pretty good team, so far as training went, for Mr. Dennison was perfectly familiar with repairing, and Mr. Howard with the construction of watches. Notwithstanding this, however, neither of them had any knowledge whatsoever as to certain details of the business—how to make a dial, temper hairsprings, polish steel, or do watch-gilding properly—and none of their men had either. As a result every one of these separate arts and many like them had to be studied and mastered from the foundation up, and after the chiefs themselves had experimented and found out how to turn the trick they had to teach their men what they personally had learned."

"Great Scott! I'd have given the business away to anybody who wanted it," burst out Christopher.

"So would almost anybody else, I fancy," agreed the Scotchman. "But they kept right on sticking at it. It wasn't their courage that gave out in the end; it was their money. They simply could not continue to pull along under so colossal a burden. Therefore after three years they sold the business (operated at that time under the name of the Boston Watch Company) to Mr. Royal Robbins, and he reorganized it and christened it the Waltham Watch Company."

"It seems kind of a pity they had to sell it," mused Christopher with regret. "The worst of the battle was over by that time."

"Yes. At least the foundation of the enterprise was well laid."

"What became of Mr. Dennison and Mr. Howard?" asked the boy.

"Mr. Howard went back to Roxbury to his first factory and there the Howard Watch and Clock Company was formed. The saying goes that it is a long lane that has no turning. Certainly every one familiar with Mr. Howard's early struggles must have rejoiced in the success that ultimately came to him. Mr. Dennison had in the meantime left the Waltham company; but when it was reorganized he returned to it and remained there several years to lend his invaluable aid to the new firm."

"And did the concern go ahead after that?"

"Yes, it had reached calm waters by this time. Besides, when the Civil War arose and the rate of gold went up, watches brought very high prices and the company coined money. With it they were enabled to branch out and not only improve their home plant but put up factories elsewhere. Some of these were not, to be sure, successful; but as a whole the business thrived wonderfully. Offices were established in London, and America began to take her place among the big watchmaking countries of the world."

"Hurrah for Uncle Sam!" laughed the boy.

"Rather I say hurrah for the fellows who fought his watch battle for him," was McPhearson's somewhat curt retort. "For the watch business has never been one easy of development. You can blunder along and turn out poor, carelessly made stuff in certain lines of trade and get by with it. The public does not always know a good product from a bad one, and all except the expert can be easily fooled. But a watch proclaims its own worth. It has to go and has to keep accurate time or all the world will know it. If it fails to do the work it was bought to do, people won't buy it. Therefore that these results may be reached and a satisfactory article put on the market there must be money enough to house a large plant, pay skilled and high-priced workmen, supply the best of material, and tempt into the industry men of brains. Many a watch venture has gone on the rocks for the lack of these assets.

"Once on its feet, however, a well-manned American watch concern has all it can do. It need have no qualms about foreign rivalry, for no European country has ever yet been able to build up a factory system that could touch that of the United States, either in quality or quantity of output. As a result most nations have given over trying to. Our watches can be made cheaper and hence in greater numbers than those of other lands, and we now practically control the watch market. The era when a few watches were made by hand and afterward sent to a local astronomer or distant observatory to be tested out has passed. Even before the United States Naval Observatory was established the Waltham Watch Company had an observatory of its own. Now we have graduated even beyond that point and each noon the official time is telegraphed or broadcast from Arlington to all parts of the country."

"We do whizz ahead, don't we?" meditated Christopher, absently twirling between his fingers a screw he had picked up from McPhearson's bench.

"I should say we did," was the enthusiastic reply. "That screw, for instance! In the infancy of watchmaking it took a good factory worker a whole day to make from eight to twelve hundred screws. This seems a vast number until you recall that each watch requires from thirty to fifty of these small articles. At that rate, you see, it would not take long to use up all the screws a mechanic could turn out. Now, so marvelous has machinery become, that a single operator can tend half a dozen or more machines, every one of which can produce from four thousand to ten thousand screws a day. This gives you some idea of the proportionate increase in watch parts. For in a big country like this we have to make lots of watches to supply those constantly clamoring for them. Long ago a watch was either a toy or a luxury; but now every person you meet carries one. The price is such that he can afford to. But more than this, a watch is absolutely indispensable in our present manner of living. From morning to night we rush to crowd into our twenty-four hours everything we can possibly crowd in; and in order to do this we must keep careful track of the minutes and hours. Hence the demand for watches has multiplied almost beyond belief and there are now a great many watch factories."

"What are some of them?"

"I'll mention a few as nearly in the order of their founding as I can," McPhearson answered:

"The E. Howard Company of Boston, organized 1850.

"American Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1859.

"Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, 1870.

"Rockford Watch Company, Rockford, Illinois, 1874.

"U. S. Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1883.

"Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1892.

"These are some of the oldest and best known firms."

Christopher thought a moment.

"Of course I've heard of some of them," remarked he. "The Hamilton everybody knows. It is advertised in almost every magazine."

"The Hamilton watch came into being under interesting and, I may say, tragic circumstances. One day a bad railroad accident happened out near Cleveland, Ohio, and when the calamity was investigated evidence proved that neither of the engineers on the unlucky trains that collided was really to blame. The trouble was that their watches did not agree. There was a difference of four minutes between them. Both timepieces were good ones that never before had led their owners astray; but on this fatal day they were responsible not only for the deaths of two blameless engineers but also a number of mail clerks. It is strange, isn't it, that the public must always experience a terrible lesson before it wakes up to safeguarding human life? Let us have a fire in which many persons perish, and we begin to move heaven and earth to inspect buildings and install fire escapes; or let a lot of people die from shipwreck and we cannot buy life belts fast enough. But we always wait until after the disaster has occurred before we do it. Thus it was with this fatal railroad accident. Once the catastrophe had happened and the poor chaps were dead, a set of rules was established whereby men employed on trains must carry watches of a specified quality. No cheap article was to be allowed in future. And not only must the railroad worker purchase such a watch, but he must keep it cleaned and properly regulated."

"That was all very well to decree," replied Christopher, "but how could the authorities make sure such a rule would be obeyed?"

"Ah, the railroad took no chances of being fooled," was McPhearson's instant reply. "A watch inspector was appointed whose duty it was to examine every important official's watch once in a stated period and see that it conformed to the requirements. If a watch failed to keep up to the standard set—by that I mean if it lost or gained more than a very trifling amount a week—it was condemned and ordered to be discarded and a new one had to be bought."

"But how about the men?" put in Christopher, a hint of disapproval in his tone. "What if some of them couldn't afford to purchase these fine-running, expensive watches? Being told to toss your watch out the window and get another isn't always possible."

"It was to meet the objection that you have just raised that a week after the wreck the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster was organized. It aimed to manufacture a good, close-running watch at a moderate price, and it fulfilled its promise. The proposition was a sound business one, too, for all over the country men were employed to whom correctness of time was of vital importance—switch-tenders, motormen, engineers, conductors, not to enumerate the thousands of other working people to whom being prompt at ferries, trains, cars, and their job was imperative. So, you see, the age provided a distinct market for a high-class article of this sort and the Hamilton Company was intelligent enough to realize and seize it. Good business is seeing your chance, grabbing it, and then holding onto it."

The lad smiled.

"Of course there are times," continued McPhearson, "when it is possible to create a market out of whole cloth. If, for instance, you can think of something that would be useful to the public, something they themselves have never happened to think of before, you can bring it to their attention by clever advertising and make them want it. That is the method the Waterbury Watch Company followed in launching their goods back in 1880. For a long time two Massachusetts men had been wondering whether an exceedingly cheap watch that would be within the reach of even quite poor people could not be made. Such a commodity, they argued, could not fail to have an extensive sale. The problem was who could they find to construct this sort of timepiece? Then on a fine day Mr. Locke, one of the men, saw in the window of a Worcester jeweler a miniature steam engine that had previously been exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial. Immediately the thought came into his mind that a workman who could construct such a perfect toy must be both ingenious and inventive, and he went into the shop and offered Mr. Buck, the maker of the wee engine, a hundred dollars to produce for him a cheap watch of the type he had in mind."

"Was Mr. Buck ready to try the stunt?"

"Yes, he agreed to see what he could do," was the reply. "So he got to work and after a little while had a model ready. But, alas, it did not prove to be much of a watch, and the poor man, having toiled and worried about it day and night, finally went to bed sick. But of course that wouldn't do. He had had the money and therefore was bound either to pay it back—a thing he was in too straitened circumstances to do—or he must stick at the problem until he solved it. Both he and his wife were honest people who understood this. Accordingly Mrs. Buck begged that her husband be given a little more time. He had, declared she, a better plan in his head which he would try out as soon as he was able."

"What did Mr. Locke say to that?"

"Both he and Mr. Merritt, his associate, consented to wait a little while and at the end of a few months Mr. Buck was as good as his word and brought them the model of a watch that was exactly what they wanted. Thus far the enterprise went all right." The clockmaker paused.

"You sound as if things began to happen afterward," suggested Christopher.

"Well, to tell the truth, they did. In the first place money had to be raised to put the venture on its feet. As a good deal of this capital, together with factory facilities, was offered by a brass manufacturing firm at Waterbury, Connecticut, there the plant was installed. But like every other watchmaking project this one swallowed up a great many dollars before any watches were to be seen. Then at last the first thousand were triumphantly turned out and, to the chagrin of the firm, proved to be anything but a success. Some difficulty with the brass used prevented their running properly."

One would have thought, to hear Christopher's sympathetic exclamation, that all his earnings had been invested in the unlucky enterprise.

"The second thousand were better," went on the Scotchman, "but still they did not go well; this meant more money to improve the machinery and still more delay in putting the goods on the market. Then at length after the watches had been doctored until only a small percentage of them stopped they were offered for sale."

"Did people buy them?"

"If they didn't it was not the fault of the Company," chuckled McPhearson. "Certainly every inducement was held out to purchasers. Not only was the price of four dollars within reach of the most meager purse, but the watches were dangled as bait before the eyes of all sorts of covetous bargain hunters. Sometimes you were coaxed into buying a suit of clothes to get one; sometimes one came with a big order of groceries or maybe as a premium for selling soap. Not infrequently they were awarded as prizes for subscriptions to magazines. They were so hawked about that the whole country heard of them and quantities of them were sold."

"The firm must have got rich," put in Christopher, much interested.

"It didn't," was the prompt contradiction. "On the contrary, after several years of struggle, it failed. The public is fickle, you know, and the novelty of owning a cheap watch wore off. Moreover, the product got a bad name and failed to be taken seriously. It required a great deal of time and energy to wind a watch with such a long spring as this one had, and I must agree that those who made jokes at the expense of the poor Waterbury were well within their rights. Furthermore, the watches had been linked up with inferior commodities and when purchasers found, for example, that they had been gulled on the suit of clothes they acquired with the watch, instead of cursing the clothier they took out their wrath on the watch company. Then, too, the firm, in order to get their wares distributed, had parted with them at so small a margin of profit that nothing was made on them. The entire scheme from beginning to end showed poor generalship. What wonder such an enterprise went down?"

"And is that the end of the story?"

"By no means," retorted the Scotchman. "Far from it. The management took their experience as wise people do and years later began over again, afterward reaping greater success than they had ever known, all of which proves that it never pays to give up."

"Haven't lots of other kinds of cheap watches been made since?"

"Yes. The Ingersoll is one. It is the result of several years' experiment with a dollar watch. At first a thick, clumsy contrivance that wound from the back like a clock was introduced, and from this stepping stone Ingersoll developed a second and third type, each an improvement on the original. Having thereby convinced himself that the dollar watch was not only possible but would sell, he got the Waterbury Company to put out his idea for him; now the Ingersolls have in addition two factories of their own, and the three together average an output of about twenty thousand watches a day. In a country as big as ours, however, the great problem is to get goods known from east to west, and from the north to the south, and this obstacle of distribution was the one the company encountered. How was the country generally to know there was a good dollar watch? Owing to the scant margin of profit on which the watches were sold, it did not pay large retailers to carry them. Neither could they find even standing-room in a shop like your fathers'." With dancing eyes the Scotchman regarded Christopher.

"Moreover," he went on, "although Ingersoll guaranteed his watch, tricky competition arose. Other firms borrowed the name as a label for their own poor goods; some merchants took the Ingersoll watch and ran up the price on it, privately pocketing the profit. To outwit such practices the company not only printed their name on the dials of their watches but they carefully printed the exact price on the boxes in which they were packed. You would have thought this would have forever put at an end any foul play, wouldn't you? But even these precautions were circumvented by sharpers who advertised their wretched wares as marked-down Ingersolls. Thus the company was compelled to fight inch by inch for its rights."

"I'd no idea business was such a mess," ejaculated Christopher. "And what happened to the Ingersoll people finally?"

"Providentially a turn came in their affairs," was the answer. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, the saying goes. In every calamity lurks some good and for the Ingersoll Company, at least, there was good in the Great War. Again we see a clever manufacturer grasping his opportunity. No one knew better than Ingersoll how costly striking watches were; he also sensed that soldiers who were fighting could not be supplied with endless numbers of watches nor even if they were would they always be where they could show a light. Nevertheless there would be hundreds of men in the trenches and on the battle fields who through long stretches of darkness would wish to know what time it was. Many would be on guard and compelled to remain awake; and many more would be unable to sleep from terror, homesickness, or because they suffered from the various discomforts war brings. What, therefore, could be a greater boon than a cheap watch with an illuminated face? It was to answer this emergency that the Ingersoll Company turned out their Radiolite Watch."

"I suppose the dial had phosphorus on it," rejoined Christopher.

"No. Phosphorus was found to be entirely impractical for the purpose, because, you see, phosphorus must at intervals be placed where it can absorb the light in order to retain its brilliancy. Now as a man's watch stays most of the time in his pocket, a watch dial treated with phosphorus would have no opportunity to regain its phosphorescence. Hence the Ingersoll Company developed a sort of radium coating for their dials. It probably was not actually made from radium because there is not enough of it to be found in all the world even if a watch company could afford to buy it up. Just what this magic watch dial was made from was Ingersoll's secret; but anyway it did what it was guaranteed to do and instantly leaped into popularity. Many and many a soldier off on the battle front blessed the makers of these watches, I guess. As for the company—no longer were they obliged to wrestle with the problem of getting their goods known, because from one end of our country to the other, as well as far overseas, their watches became a byword." The old Scotchman stopped as if tired with telling his long story.

"Now," added he, "I have roughly sketched for you the tale of watchmaking in America. There is much more that might be related but you yourself, by using your eyes and ears, can fill in the gaps. Just remember this one fact—that it was your own land that developed and brought to its present high grade of efficiency the factory system of making watches. You have no cause to apologize, either, for your country's handiwork. We do not by any means always hold first place in the products we put out. Many nations can give us points along certain lines of industry. But in this field we are supreme and have given the world something for which we need not blush. So, say I, three cheers for Uncle Sam! Sometime if you can manage it, make a trip through one of our up-to-date American watch factories. Examine the numberless machines that represent so much patient and intelligent study. Then come home grateful to our watch pioneers for what they have handed on to us."