The Moonlit Road - The Ticking Clock

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"Way back before you were born," Granny said, "My sister Elspeth was married to a no-account man named Arthur. He treated her real bad, running around with other women and taking off for weeks at a time. He would leave her without money and food to take care of their little babies. So one time she came to stay with your Granddaddy and me. She didn't bring much, but she made sure to bring this clock with her. I asked her why she lugged that clock along, when she had so much to do with taking care of those babies. Elspeth told me she had to keep it hid so Arthur wouldn't hock it. Besides, it was the only thing Daddy left her that she valued at all. She kept it with her to remember the good times we all had growing up."

Granny suddenly paused, as if remembering those long ago days, then continued telling me the story. "I told Elspeth that I had never seen that clock before. Elspeth said, 'That's because Daddy kept it hid up in the attic under an old cloth.'"

Stairs

"Elspeth then told me that one night, when everybody else in the house was asleep, she heard a noise that sounded like somebody walking around up in the attic. Not long after that, she heard Daddy jump out of bed and run up the attic stairs. She snuck out of bed and quietly climbed up the stairs to see what was going on. She saw that a big possum had gotten up in the attic. Daddy shooed it out through the eave vent and then slumped down hard on a bundle of old clothes, with his head in his hands. His face was all pale looking and he was breathing really hard, like he'd run a long way in the heat. After he sat there for a minute and some color returned to his face, he stood up, walked warily to the back of the attic, moved some boards, and lifted out something fairly big that was wrapped in an old quilt. When he unwrapped the quilt, Elspeth saw an old clock with a picture of a bird dog on the front. It looked just like Grandpa McIntyre's bird dog."

"About this time, Elspeth got brave and walked up into the attic to ask Daddy what was going on. He quickly tried to cover up the clock, but Elspeth told him she already saw him take the clock out from under the attic floor. Daddy told her that if she promised not to tell anybody what she saw, she could have the clock when he died. When she said that the dog looked like Grandpa's dog Ol' Luke, Daddy said 'Well, Elspeth, that's because it is Ol' Luke.' Daddy told her that Grandpa McIntyre loved that dog so much he paid somebody from Atlanta $50 to paint the dog's picture on the clock, so that Grandpa could always have Ol' Luke with him, even after the dog passed away."

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