mender and resumed the round of duty. He would buy from the old estate
halls on the Sassafras and the Chester rivers, tall, solemn clocks,
dead to the purpose of their creation, their stately learned faces
lost to former automatic expressions or waggery, and when exposed to
the infectious influences of his shop, a gurgle of sound as of the
inhalation of air into their lungs had been heard, according to some
people, and next day the carcass of the clock would be found resonant
and its faculties recovered. One day the great patriots, John
Dickinson and Cæsar Rodney, riding past Christina together, stopped
for dinner, and sent their watches in to be cleaned meantime.

"'Minuit,' said Rodney, 'you are a devil with a time-keeper!'

"'Nay, Minuit,' said Dickinson, 'thou art the gentlest custodian of
time in our parts. I would some one could regulate these States and
times like thee.'

"The country round resorted to Minuit for repairs, but he generally
came himself along the roads fortuitously about the time anybody's
dials stood still. He was almost equal as a weather prophet to his
fame as a mechanic, and as his broad, fat face, blue eyes, and portly
body passed some farmer's gate, the cheery cry would go up, perhaps:

"'Make hay--the wind's right!' or again: 'Time enough, farmer, with
another pair of hands. But it's coming from the east!'

"Had it been possible to suggest any superstition about a man
universally popular, people would have said that this henchman of time
and minute-hand of diligence drew his power from doubtful sources.
Further north, where there was less superstition than amongst these