Browzer Books
 Proudly Presents

The Watch  
by
Lin Stone

Joseph swept every honor at graduation. He was the valedictorian of his high school class. He had won the best scholarship. He had excelled in every field. He had worked hard for those honors. But when the principal asked each student and the parents to stand up in alphabetic order, one by one, Joseph stood up alone. My wife nudged me, and we stood up too.

Joseph was not an orphan. His father lived 12 miles away. His mother's home was only a few blocks from the school. Yet Joseph had stood up alone. The seconds had passed uncomfortable fine before we rose.  We were ratty and ragged, far from being his only relatives there, but still, his only support.  

His gaze was on the floor, I doubt if he even knew we stood up.

Many years ago I had been the valedictorian of my class too. My parents came with me to the graduation. But they didn't understand what a valedictorian was until years later. I was not the one that told them. I was ashamed.

I was ashamed of having been fooled into caring enough to earn it, thinking it meant something to someone. 

When we arrived at the graduation hall, all of us went running and laughing all over the place. My only friend, Dave was the Salutatorian that year. He found me in the bathroom. His face was flushed, his eyes glowed. He was proud, and justly so. He had worked far harder for his grades than had I.

"Hey, look," he cried. He held up his arm for me to see a wrist watch made of gold.

"Four Hundred Dollars," he announced in awe. "It's my graduation present from my parents for being the Salutatorian."

"Boy, how beautiful." I said.

He showed me how it worked, and where the jewels were.

Suddenly he stopped in mid-sentence. "Wait a minute. You're the Valedictorian. What did YOU get for graduation."

{What did I get?} 

The question stunned me.  I'd never had two cents to rub together. 

I had got a zero. I had got zilch. I had nothing. 

But I was an inventive genius even then, and I invented something on the spot. 

"I got a job. I get to work all this summer. Why ---" my mind stretched to the widest realms of possibility --- "I might make as much as six hundred dollars!"

He heard the exclamation point. 

He was my friend. The words hurt him as much as they did me. 

His wincing nod recognized the figure as impressive. Then the joy went out of his face and Dave walked away.

Daddy did shove that job down my throat; I did earn that $600, 

and he took it. 

I earned my $600 at 12 hours a day on a shovel handle, and by wrestling pipes bigger than I was and weighing more. It was not fun. It was not fair.

More school was not for me. Oh, I went, and I looked into the classrooms, and the teachers were just as phonily inspirational as ever. But I knew they didn't care. As soon as the shoe pinched, they would let me fall. So I dropped them first. I went back to the farm I hated and grew bitter in my hate.

{Nobody cares when a child stands up alone. Nobody cares when the mother is dancing wild and the father hustling late.} 

Thus it was, my wife and I stood up when Joseph did, and we sat down when he did, then stood again with our own child (almost last on the honor roll) when her name was called. 

Neither one of them got a present. And nobody there but us cared.

I went back home to my job on the farm and for days I thought of the golden watch and hoped Joseph would not carry the one he never got with him to his grave too.

Watches like that?  

They can run forever 

and they never need winding.


The End

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