about running a factory It made her feel alive Hope ran through the second floor of the brownstone she and her father shared in downtown New York collecting her belongings as she went Honestly Hope You mustn’t run Children run Ladies stroll Well then teach me how to stroll at that pace and I’ll stroll she said Hester well-meaning clod that she was had been hired by her father shortly after Hope’s mother passed away six years ago As a maternal figure she was laughable As an educator she was adequate that is if Hope was ever interested in what she was teaching Hope and her governess walked along the streets of downtown passing by the other brownstones that made up her neighborhood They eventually led to large cube-like buildings that had a lot less character on the outside And though they didn’t look nearly as vibrant on the outside Hope knew that they were teeming with life and activity on the inside 8
They were factories and to her they were their own kind of beautiful They walked up to a building that was somewhere in the middle in terms of size They walked through the front doors of Richardson Timepieces and Hester put her hand on Hope’s back Go straight to your father’s office and please try to practice some of what we learned today Eloquence The art of conversation Not wanting to argue in the lobby of her father’s factory Hope held back the eye roll that was threatening Of course Have a good day Hester she said as she ran up the stairs toward her father’s office Patrick Richardson owner and founder of Richardson Timepieces was a tall broad man who spoke at only one volume loud Hope always found it to be warm and familiar Many people found it to be intimidating and aggressive So when Hope rounded the hallway to his office she knew right away 9
that he wasn’t in She passed through the door of his office and found that it was indeed empty Making herself comfortable at his desk she looked through ledgers and documents that lay about his desk She looked at some of the shelved books across the room Finance Law History of watchmaking She took down the history book and idly thumbed through the pages passing by illustrations of sundials hourglasses and pendulums After about an hour she was starting to get bored sitting alone in the room for so long Looking over at the door to his office she wondered how much her father would mind if she decided to take a walk around without him He usually did his walkthroughs with her in the afternoon and she knew the factory as if she lived there It would be fine She walked through the hallway that housed her father’s office down the set of 10
stairs at the end and into the open space that held the factory The sounds of buzzing clinking and hissing of the machines filled her ears She walked through the aisles in between the machinery watching men guide machines to cut out small pieces of metal that would make the insides of the timepieces A man wiped the sweat from his brow on the right another rolled his sleeves up to his elbows on the left The factory was much like a Richardson watch itself with so many moving pieces working together to make something magical She rounded a corner and found a young man with dusty blonde hair she didn’t recognize the machines seemingly trying to fix it She stopped walking and watched him He couldn’t have been too much younger than her maybe a couple of years but he looked like he was perfectly at home in a factory as if he’d been working in one for years The boy reached up a bit further into the inside one of reaching 11
