Lake Lewisia #502

The child, eyes fixed on the hardware store rafters and shelves and the clutter of antique tools and machines displayed there, asked all in a rush, “What’s that, what’re those, how’s that work, what’s it for?” The owner smiled indulgently and turned the handle of an auto wringer with a squeak that almost drowned out the answer, “Just very old ways of doing things.” The child’s look of awe just served as further proof for the Quartz Hardware Corollary to Clarke’s Third Law: any sufficiently antiquated technology is also indistinguishable from magic.

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LL#502