The Day of the Clock
Dear boys and girls, consider the escapement (fold your middle fingers in and stick the thumb and pinky out, a little bent), and a sharp-toothed spring-loaded wheel. Tick is the moral thumbnail as it hits the V between two teeth. The tooth behind dead in its tracks. The ardent wheel insists, but No! says the thumb, until I change my mind. Little pinky whispers: Trust in me. Thumb tips up and then....Pinky: Quick! (the wheel is Youth, yearning to spin free). Thumb: go for it. Shifty pinky: Tock. Till the spring goes slack, the wheel no longer yearns, and pinky and thumb get tired of taking turns.