Fools' Gold by Richard Wiley

pendulum and staring past it and through the dusty glass as the members of her family searched for her. She must have stayed in that clock for more than an hour, for she remembered the lonely sound of its striking. It echoed through the wood and into her body. The pendulum sliced the air in front of her nose, making soft cutting sounds. Several times her mother or her sisters had stared directly at her, but they saw only themselves in the flat surface of the glass, never the girl hiding behind the sockets of their own eyes.
    It was Ellen’s grandmother who finally found her. Her father’s mother. The small door had opened and the old woman bent down, peering past the pendulum.
    â€œEllen?” she had shrieked, her voice darting past the sharp seconds. She pulled the child out and stood her on the clean floor and closed the clock door without starting the pendulum again. It had moved silently, and in little circles.
    John Hummel, the forgotten first customer, finished his bath quickly and startled Ellen when he stepped in front of her.
    â€œOh,” she said.
    â€œIf you’d like me to pay?”
    Ellen sat forward and looked at him. “I’ll tell you,” she said. “Since you are the actual first customer let’s call it fair that you should have a free one.”
    Hummel had his money ready but stopped counting and smiled, his hand covering his diseased mouth.
    â€œThat’s very kind. If there’s ever anything…” But Ellen silenced him with a short wave and Hummel nodded, spitting into his handkerchief before moving toward the door. When he was gone Ellen took the towel he’d used, quickly throwing it into a tub of waiting water. She looked around the room for something out of place and then sat back down to wait for the next customer. Henriette needed twenty minutes to ready the tubs, but before Ellen could lose herself in Ireland again the flap of the tent was pushed aside and Finn entered. He’d stopped somewhere during his rounds to purchase Ellen a grand opening gift.
    â€œWhat is it?” she asked.
    â€œâ€˜What is it’ is a question that can be answered by its opening,” said Finn. He had two boxes and stretched one toward Henriette when she came through the curtain.
    â€œTo get the business off on the right foot is all.”
    Ellen opened her package first and held up a heavy cream-white marble egg.
    â€œIt’s for giving those chickens the idea,” Finn told her. “You put that marble egg in under them and they get to thinking it’s real and then they get the urge to duplicate it. It truly works. It will double your yield.”
    With thumb and forefinger, Ellen held the egg up to the light. “I’ve never seen such a thing,” she said slowly, one eye closed and peering at it like a jeweler. “So small and smooth yet heavy as a bantam.”
    In Henriette’s package there was a hairbrush with a handle of marble the same color as Ellen’s egg. She quickly ran it through her hair then held it up as if proving that it too worked.
    â€œWell then,” said Finn. “I’ll grant there are still a few out there who don’t know of the bath’s existence.” He lifted the remaining stack of leaflets and left again before the women could say anything about the egg and the brush.
    About many of the nearby tents lumber had been stacked in anticipation of the construction crews that were even now being formed by those men who had not staked claims. Finn was confident, for he had his tools and had posted his own name. He was a man looking for a crew. There was something about a place like this. Here a man could start again. All he had to do was post a list upon the canvas side of a tent, saying that he was a boss looking for men, and some men, many of them, would sign below. Finn supposed it was because many men thought there was some secret to being boss, some obscure knowledge of procedure.