Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/124

 120 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

he suffered in secret, that it was undermining his health, and yet he could do nothing. We felt that any moment the clock might stop altogether. The imp started play- ing all kinds of nasty tricks and idle pranks, shook itself sideways, and stumbled like an old man who drags his feet after him. One could see that the clock was about to stop forever ! It was a good thing my father under- stood in time that the clock was about to yield up its soul, and that the fault lay with the balance weights: the weight was too light. And he puts on a jostle, which has the weight of about four pounds. The clock goes on like a song, and my father becomes as cheerful as a newborn man.

But this was not to be for long: the clock began to lose again, the imp was back at his tiresome perform- ances: he moved slowly on one side, quickly on the other, with a hoarse noise, like a sick old man, so that it went to the heart. A pity to see how the clock agonized, and my father, as he watched it, seemed like a nickering, bickering flame of a candle, and nearly went out for grief.

Like a good doctor, who is ready to sacrifice himself for the patient's sake, who puts forth all his energy, tries every remedy under the sun to save his patient, even so my father applied himself to save the old clock, if only it should be possible.

"The weight is too light," repeated my father, and hung something heavier onto it every time, first a frying- pan, then a copper jug, afterwards a flat-iron, a bag of sand, a couple of tiles and the clock revived every