JOY ALONG THE WAY: BIG AND LITTLE COG WHEELS

A big, heavy, silver pocket watch was Grandpa's prized possession. He was never without it. Fastened by a leather thong to a brass button on his overalls, it rested in a bib pocket that always sagged with the weight of it.

Sometimes when he felt the need or thought I felt the need, he would take the watch out, remove the thong fastener, pry off the back lid with his pocket knife and show me all the busily turning big and little cog wheels.

This usually took place when I'd taken Grandpa a bucket of cool well water to where he would be working in some far field. I was usually barefoot and would be as thirsty as he was when I arrived. Many time he would be way over on the far side of the field when I arrived, but I always waited until he came around before I would take a drink. He'd drive the horses into the closest shade and we'd find a shady place ourselves to sit and drink, long and thirstily, always ending with long "Aaahhhs."

I never tired of seeing the insides of the watch. There seemed to be such a maze of those big and little wheels, all circulating at different speeds and in different directions. I think there were some we couldn't see, way down in the watch but which we knew were there.

"Where's the belts?" I once asked, being used to belts running some of the farm machinery.

"No belts. Just needs a spring to start unwinding to set one little wheel turning and that little wheel starts all the others and if even one of them doesn't work, all the rest lay down on the job."

"Even if that little one down there quits?" I asked, pointing to the smallest one I could see.

"Each one is of equal importance, no matter its size. If it didn't turn, this one its cogs fit into wouldn't turn and if that one didn't turn, the one its cogs fit into wouldn't turn and so on and on."

"What's a cog?"

"See those little teeth-like things at the edge of the wheel? Those are called cogs."

I wanted to test by sticking a timothy stalk into a turning cog to see if would really stop the whole works, but knew better.

"Don't they ever stop?" I asked.

"Oh yes, you have to wind the watch up every now and then." I'd seen him do that many times but didn't know exactly what he was doing.

We took another drink of water and "Aaahhed" satisfactorily.

"You're a cog wheel," Grandpa said, patting my head. "If you didn't bring me this water, I'd be plum run down."

"And the horses would stop?"

"Yep."

"And there would be no corn?"

"Yep."

We went on and on, laughingly, from corncob to pigs and chickens, groceries to money for the mortgage, whatever that was.

Finally, we either tired of the game or Grandpa, having to go back to work, summed it all up, "We're all cog wheels and we'd better do our part."

For a long time after that he called me Little Cog and I called him Big Wheel. This was long before "big wheel" meant a mover and shaker. No one in the rest of the family ever knew the source of our affectionate nicknames.

Some days, now, when I don't want to do any part of anything, not make my wheels turn anyone else's wheels, I think of those little turning cogs and get up off the couch to carry a bucket of water to the bird bath so that the birds can grow and sing and scatter seeds that become wild cherry trees or cedar trees that become Christmas trees or closet linings that may become . . . .

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosely is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.