e muscles of his neck that
winter, and leanin' over was mighty painful to him; so pretty soon he
straightened up, but all the rest of us kept our heads bowed on the
back o' the pew in front of us, and waited for the clock to strike.
Somehow or other the time seemed mighty long, and everybody begun to
feel restless. Sam Amos was in the pew jest across the aisle from me
and Abram and I saw him take out his watch and look at it, and Uncle
Jim Mathews dropped off to sleep and got to snorin', and that set the
young folks to laughin', and everybody got tired leanin' their heads
over so long, and every now and then somebody would straighten up,
till at last everybody was settin' up straight except two or three
that was fast asleep. And still the clock didn't strike, and I reckon
we'd 'a' stayed there till daylight if it hadn't been for Sam Amos.
Everybody knew there was something wrong, but nobody had the courage
to git up and say so except Sam. He rose up in his pew and says he,
'Neighbors, I don't want to disturb this watch-meetin', but it looks
to me like one of two things has happened: either the new year's got
lost on the way or the old year's took a notion to stay with us a
little longer, and,' says he, 'I move that somebody goes behind the
pulpit and sees if there ain't somethin' wrong with the clock.'

"Well, Parson Page he got up and went up the pulpit steps--I ricollect
he had to step over Martin Luther's legs; Martin Luther was lyin' over
on his face sound asleep--and he stooped down and looked at the clock,
and then he threw up his hands and says he: 'Why, bless my soul! It's
nearly one o'clock.'

"Well, with that the young folks begun to laugh scandalous, and
everybody jumped up and begun talkin' at once. Abram says, 'The
strikin' part o' that clock must be out o' fix.' And Parson Page says,
'That can't be, for I carried it to town last week and had it put in
order especially for this occasion.' And Milly Amos says, 'Why didn't
some o' you men folks look at your watches instead o' lettin' us sit
here wastin' all this good time?' And Sam Amos says, 'I did look at
mine, but it didn't do much good, for I forgot to wind it last night,
and it had stopped at half-past five in the mornin' or the evenin', I
couldn't tell which.' And Silas Petty said his watch hadn't been
keepin' good time lately, and he didn't think it was worth while to
look at it. And Parson Page said he laid his watch on the bureau and
forgot to put