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Charlie noticed it first.  He’d stepped out onto the rickety balcony to drink his morning coffee and pick at the rust on the railing.  “I don’t know what made me do it,” he would tell the newspaper later, “But I jus’ looked an’ I saw it.  My eyes jus’ wandered along Main street, pas’ Fuller’s an’ then I was lookin’ at the bank an’ I saw it—Ol’ Toms, gawn!

“Well whaddya think I did nex’? I spilled me coffee all over the azaleas an’ I run inside to th’ wife and I says, ‘Mabel, you bes’ get ower here quick!’  At firs’ she says she ain’t comin’ haf-dressed but I tells her it’s Ol’ Toms and she jump right up.”

Mrs. Charlie couldn’t believe her eyes when she joined her husband in the early morning light.  The four faces of the unreliable but beloved bank clock were nowhere to be seen.  Like any good citizen she did the most practical thing a woman could do—she quickly called up all her neighbors to tell them, “Ol’ Toms’ been stolen away while we was sleepin’!  Get the fire brigade on the phone!  Grab the mayor!  He’s out of town?!  Well then, call the president!”

Soon enough, through the efforts of Mrs. Charlie and her friends, the whole town knew of the theft and I tell you, that little village of Saltcreek hadn’t seen so much excitement since the day Lurlene Brummage’s pig was fed some sticky saltwater taffy by the boys of 3rd street school that glued his gums together and made him trample all through Mr. Avery’s prize-winning roses.  Old folks wagged their snow-white heads and said such a thing never would’ve happened in their day—it was probably one of those teenagers with the hippity-hop music and baggy-down jeans vandy-lie-sing it like they did to the water tower three years ago.  Young folks retaliated that it was more than likely some old fogey who wanted the town’s treasure all for theirself to keep in their cobwebbed celler.  Preachers said the loss was the wrath of God who took away their toy because people had begun to worship time instead of Him and the only way they would get their clock back was if they all came to the prayer revival next weekend from 10 to 2 and brought a potluck dinner.  Children left school to see this historic event and some women formed the Ol’ Toms Society, chained themselves to the bank doors and said they wouldn’t eat, sleep, or leave until the culprit returned the clock, but of course if a kindly stranger offered them the remains of his lunch they wouldn’t say no.

Speculation and gossip rang high.  Some said it must have been the Communists who took it, hoping to infiltrate the town whiles it was all of a ruckus.  Some said the clock was going to be replaced with a shiny new digital clock that would call out the hours in a mechanized voice.  Some said they were glad it was gone, none of the faces ever showed the same time as the others and all of them were frequently too fast or too slow.  These people quickly shut up after threats of being run out of town on a rail.

Things were just getting worked up into a frenzy when the mayor arrived.  Mr. Critchfield was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, having only stopped by town hall to grab his house key which he’d forgotten on his desk in his haste to leave for his week-long fishing trip on Moldy Boulder Lake, but the public immediately turned to him and demanded, on pain of impeachment, that he do something about this atrocity, find the culprits and burn them at the stake.  The entire town had gathered in the square with pitchforks, torches and the stainless steal ice picks two for a dollar at Fuller’s, intent on searching every nook and cranny.  When Mayor Critchfield stood on the pavilion steps and held out his hands, silence fell like narcoleptic Judge M. J. Lilac’s gavel.

“Good people of Saltcreek, put out those torches (after all, it’s still sun out) and listen to me.  The Old Toms are fine.  I signed the order last week for Billy’s to take them down, repaint the faces and fix the mechanisms so the clocks will run on time.  I posted a notice in the paper days ago, didn’t anybody read it?”

A silence as thick Mr. Avery’s secret-formula fertilizer fell over the square.  Then from the back of the crowd a voice, some say it was Mr. Higgins, some say it was Barnaby Willis, called out, “’Course we didn’t read no notice!  Nobody ever reads official news!”

Well after that, people began leaving in twos and threes, avoiding eye contact and sulking off to their homes.  Charlie told his wife she should neva have opened her big mouth to all them busy-body friends o’hers and she retorted it was all his fault for making her run out and miss Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson.  Teachers resumed their classes, somebody found the key locking the Ol’ Toms Society to the bank and the preachers had to think up new ways to get souls saved.  And Mayor Critchfield grabbed his key, jumped in his Chevy truck and zoomed away to lose his troubles in the pristine waters of the Moldy Boulder.