The Watchmaker Who Knew Every Spring

In his small shop on the Barteljorisstraat in Haarlem, Holland, Casper ten Boom could identify a malfunctioning watch simply by holding it to his ear. After sixty years at his workbench, the old watchmaker knew the sound of every spring, the rhythm of every gear. His daughter Corrie recalled that her father could take a timepiece apart, lay out its dozens of tiny components across a velvet cloth, and reassemble them without a single piece left over.…