Seventh Son: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume I (12 page)

“That would be our daughter Eleanor,” said Faith.

“Yes,” said Taleswapper. “I see now that she has her mother’s eyes, which are always calm no matter what is happening.”

“No, friend,” said Faith. “It’s just that these eyes have seen such times that since then it hasn’t been easy to alarm me.”

“I hope before I leave to hear the story of such times,” Taleswapper said.

Faith looked away as she put another slab of cheese on a grandchild’s bread.

Taleswapper went right on with his account of the day, however, not wishing to show that she might have embarrassed him by not answering. “That wagon track was most peculiar,” he said. “There were covered bridges over brooks that a child could wade in, and a man could step over. I hope to hear the story of those bridges before I go.”

Again, no one would meet his gaze.

“And when I came out of the woods, I found a mill with no millstone, and two boys wrestling on a wagon, and a miller who gave me the worst throw of my life, and a family that took me in and gave me the best room in the house even though I was a stranger, and they didn’t know me to be good or evil.”

“Of course you’re good,” said Al Junior.

“Do you mind my asking? I’ve met many hospitable people in my time, and stayed in many a happy home, but not one happier than this, and no one quite so glad to see me.”

All were still around the table. Finally, Faith raised her head and smiled at him. “I’m glad you found us to be happy,” she said. “But we all remember other times as well, and perhaps our present happiness is sweeter, from the memory of grief.”

“But why do you take in a man like me?”

Miller himself answered. “Because once we were strangers, and good folk took us in.”

“I lived in Philadelphia for a time, and it strikes me to ask you, are you of the Society of Friends?”

Faith shook her head. “I’m Presbyterian. So are many of the children.”

Taleswapper looked at Miller.

“I’m nothing,” he said.

“A Christian isn’t nothing,” said Taleswapper.

“I’m no Christian, either.”

“Ah,” said Taleswapper. “A Deist, then, like Tom Jefferson.” The children murmured at his mention of the great man’s name.

“Taleswapper, I’m a father who loves his children, a husband who loves his wife, a farmer who pays his debts, and a miller without a millstone.” Then the man stood up from the table and walked away. They heard a door close. He was gone away outside.

Taleswapper turned to Faith. “Oh, milady, I’m afraid you must regret my coming to your house.”

“You ask a powerful lot of questions,” she said.

“I told you my name, and my name is what I do. Whenever I sense that there’s a story, one that matters, one that’s true, I hunger for it. And if I hear it, and believe it, then I remember it forever, and tell it again wherever I go.”

“That’s how you earn your way?” asked one of the girls.

“I earn my way by helping mend wagons and dig ditches and spin thread and anything else that needs doing. But my life work is tales, and I swap them one for one. You may think right now that you don’t want to tell me any of your stories, and that’s fine with me, because I never took a story that wasn’t willingly told. I’m no thief. But you see, I’ve already got a story—the things that happened to me today. The kindest people and the softest bed between the Mizzipy and the Alph.”

“Where’s the Alph? Is that a river?” asked Cally.

“What, you want a story?” asked Taleswapper.

Yes, clamored the children.

“But not about the river Alph,” said Al Junior. “That’s not a real place.”

Taleswapper looked at him in genuine surprise. “How did you know? Have you read Lord Byron’s collection of Coleridge’s poetry?”

Al Junior looked around in bafflement.

“We don’t get much bookstuff here,” said Faith. “The preacher gives them Bible lessons, so they can learn to read.”

“Then how did you know the river Alph isn’t real?”

Al Junior scrunched his face, as if to say, Don’t ask me questions when I don’t even know the answer myself. “The story I want is about Jefferson. You said his name like you met him.”

“Oh, I did. And Tom Paine, and Patrick Henry before they hanged him, and I saw the sword that cut off George Washington’s head. I even saw King Robert the Second, before the French sank his ship back in naught one and took him to the bottom of the sea.”

“Where he belonged,” murmured Faith.

“If not deeper,” said one of the older girls.

“I’ll say amen to that. They say in Appalachee that he had so much blood on his hands that even his bones are stained brown with it, and even the most indiscriminate fish won’t gnaw at them.”

The children laughed.

“Even more than Tom Jefferson,” said Al Junior, “I want a tale of the greatest American wizard. I bet you knew Ben Franklin.”

Again, the child had startled him. How did he guess that of all tales, those about Ben Franklin were the ones he best loved to tell? “Know him? Oh, a little,” said Taleswapper, knowing that the way he said it promised them all the stories they could hope for. “I lived with him only half a dozen years, and there were eight hours every night that I wasn’t with him—so I can’t say I know
much
.”

Al Junior leaned over the table, his eyes bright and unblinking. “Was he truly a maker?”

“All those stories, each in its own time,” said Taleswapper. “As long as your father and mother are willing to have me around, and as long as I believe I’m being useful, I’ll stay and tell stories night and day.”

“Starting with Ben Franklin,” insisted Alvin Junior. “Did he really pull lightning out of the sky?”

A
LVIN
J
UNIOR WOKE UP
sweating from the nightmare. It was so real, and he was panting just as if he had been trying to run away. But there was no running away, he knew that. He lay there with his eyes closed, afraid to open them for a while, knowing that when he did, it would still be there. A long time ago, when he was still little, he used to cry out when this nightmare came. But when he tried to explain it to Pa and Mama, they always said the same thing. “Why, that’s just
nothing
, son. You’re telling me you’re so a-scared of
nothing
?” So he learned himself to stifle and never cry when the dream came.

He opened his eyes, and it fled away to the corners of the room, where he didn’t have to look right at it. That was good enough. Stay there and let me be, he said silently.

Then he realized that it was full daylight, and Mama had laid out his black broadcloth pants and jacket and a clean shirt. His Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. He’d almost rather go back to the nightmare than wake up to this.

Alvin Junior hated Sunday mornings. He hated getting all dressed up, so he couldn’t set on the ground or kneel in the grass or even bend over without something getting messed up and Mama telling him to have some respect for the Lord’s day. He hated having to tiptoe around the house all morning because it was the Sabbath and there wasn’t to be no playing or making noise on the Sabbath. Worst of all he hated the thought of sitting on a hard bench down front, with Reverend Thrower looking him in the eye while he preached about the fires of hell that were waiting for the ungodly who despised the true religion and put their faith in the feeble understanding of man. Every Sunday, it seemed like.

And it wasn’t that Alvin really despised religion. He just despised Reverend Thrower. It was all those hours in school, now that harvest was over. Alvin Junior was a good reader, and he got right answers most of the time in his ciphering. But that wasn’t enough for old Thrower. He also had to teach religion right along with it. The other children—the Swedes and Knickerbockers from upriver, the Scotch and English from down—only got a licking when they sassed or got three wrong answers in a row. But Thrower took his cane to Alvin Junior every chance he got, it seemed like, and it wasn’t over book-learning, it was always about religion.

Of course it didn’t help much that the Bible kept striking Alvin funny at all the wrong times. That’s what Measure said, the time that Alvin ran away from school and hid in David’s house till Measure found him nigh onto suppertime. “If you just didn’t laugh when he reads from the Bible, you wouldn’t get whupped so much.”

But it was
funny
. When Jonathan shot all those arrows in the sky and they missed. When Jeroboam didn’t shoot enough arrows out his window. When Pharaoh kept finding tricky ways to keep the Israelites from leaving. When Samson was so dumb he told his secret to Delilah after she already betrayed him twice. “How can I keep from laughing?”

“Just think about getting blisters on your butt,” said Measure. “That ought to take the smile off your face.”

“But I never remember till after I already laughed.”

“Then you’ll probably never need a chair till you’re fifteen years old,” said Measure. “Cause Mama won’t ever let you out of that school, and Thrower won’t ever let up on you, and you can’t hide in David’s house forever.”

“Why not?”

“Because hiding from your enemy is the same as letting him win.”

So Measure wouldn’t keep him safe, and he had to go back—and take a licking from Pa, too, for scaring everybody by running away and hiding so long. Still, Measure
had
helped him. It was a comfort to know that somebody else was willing to say that Thrower was his enemy. All the others were so full of how wonderful and godly and educated Thrower was, and how
kind
he was to teach the children from his fount of wisdom, that it like to made Alvin puke.

Even though Alvin mostly kept his face under control during school, and so got less lickings, Sunday was the most terrible struggle of all, because he sat there on that hard bench listening to Thrower, half the time wanting to bust out laughing till he fell on the floor, and half the time wanting to stand up and shout, “That’s just about the stupidest thing I ever heard a growed man say!” He even had a feeling Pa wouldn’t lick him very hard for saying that to Thrower, since Pa never had much of an opinion of the man. But Mama—she’d never forgive him for doing blasphemy in the house of the Lord.

Sunday morning, he decided, is designed to let sinners have a sample of the first day of eternity in hell.

Probably Mama wouldn’t even let Taleswapper tell so much as the tiniest story today, lessen it came from the Bible. And since Taleswapper never seemed to tell stories from the Bible, Alvin Junior guessed that nothing good would come today.

Mama’s voice blasted up the stairs. “Alvin Junior, I’m so sick and tired of you taking three hours to get dressed on Sunday morning that I’m about to take you to church naked!”

“I ain’t naked!” Alvin shouted down. But since what he was wearing was his nightgown, it was probably
worse
than being naked. He shucked off the flannel nightgown, hung it on a peg, and started dressing as fast as he could.

It was funny. On any other day, he only had to reach out for his clothes without even thinking, and they’d be there, just the piece he wanted. Shirt, trousers, stockings, shoes. Always there in his hand when he reached. But on Sunday morning, it was like the clothes ran away from his hand. He’d go for his shirt and come back with his pants. He’d reach for a sock and come up with a shoe, time after time. It was like as if the clothes didn’t want to get put on his body any more than he wanted them there.

So when Mama banged open the door, it wasn’t altogether Alvin’s fault that he didn’t even have his pants on yet.

“You’ve missed breakfast! You’re still half-naked! If you think I’m going to make the whole family parade into church late on account of you, you’ve got—”

“Another think coming,” said Alvin.

It wasn’t
his
fault that she always said the same thing. But she got mad at him as if he should have pretended to be
surprised
to hear her say it for the ninetieth time since summer. Oh, she was all set to give him a licking, all right, or call for Pa to do it even worse, when there was Taleswapper, come to save him.

“Goody Faith,” said Taleswapper, “I’d be glad to see to it he comes to church, if you want to go on ahead with the others.”

The minute Taleswapper spoke, Mama whirled around and tried to hide how mad she’d been. Alvin right away started doing a calming on her—with his right hand, where she couldn’t see it, since if she saw him doing a spell on her, she’d break his arm, and that was one threat Alvin Junior truly believed. A calming didn’t work so well without touching, but since she was trying so hard to
look
calm in front of Taleswapper, it worked all right.

“I hate to put you to any trouble,” said Mama.

“No trouble, Goody Faith,” said Taleswapper. “I do little enough to repay your kindness to me.”

“Little enough!” The fretfulness was almost gone from Mama’s voice now. “Why, my husband says you do the work of two grown men. And when you tell stories to the little ones I get more peace and quiet in this house than I’ve had since—since
ever
.” She turned back to Alvin, but now her anger was more an act than real. “Will you do what Taleswapper tells you, and come to church right quick?”

“Yes, Mama,” said Alvin Junior. “Quick as I can.”

“All right then. Thank you kindly, Taleswapper. If you can get that boy to obey, that’s more than anybody else has managed since he learned to talk.”

“He’s a real brat,” said Mary, from the hallway outside.

“Shut your mouth, Mary,” Mama said, “or I’ll stuff your lower lip up your nose and tack it there to
keep
it shut.”

Alvin sighed in relief. When Mama made impossible threats it meant she wasn’t all that angry anymore. Mary put her nose in the air and flounced down the hall, but Alvin didn’t even bother with it. He just grinned at Taleswapper, and Taleswapper grinned at him.

“Having trouble getting dressed for church, lad?” asked Taleswapper.

“I’d rather dress myself in lard and walk through a herd of hungry bears,” said Alvin Junior.

“More people live through church than survive encounters with bears.”

“Not by much, though.”

Soon enough he got dressed. But he was able to talk Taleswapper into taking the shortcut, which meant walking through the woods up over the hill behind the house, instead of going around by way of the road. Since it was right cold outside, and hadn’t rained in a while, and wasn’t about to snow yet, there’d be no mud and Mama’d probably not even guess. And what Mama didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“I noticed,” said Taleswapper as they climbed up the leaf-covered slope, “that your father didn’t go with your mother and Cally and the girls.”

“He doesn’t go to that church,” said Alvin. “He says Reverend Thrower is a jackass. Course, he don’t say that where Mama can hear.”

“I suppose not,” said Taleswapper.

They stood at the top of the hill, looking down across open meadowland toward the church. The church’s own hill hid the town of Vigor Church from view. The frost was just beginning to melt off the brown autumn grass, so that the church looked to be the whitest thing in a world of whiteness, and the sun flashed on it like it was another sun. Alvin could see wagons still pulling into place, and horses being tied to the posts on the meadow. If they hurried right now, they’d probably be in their places before Reverend Thrower started up the hymn.

But Taleswapper didn’t start down the hill. He just set himself on a stump and started to recite a poem. Alvin listened tight, because Taleswapper’s poems often had a real bite to them.

Oh, Taleswapper had a knack, he did, for as he recited, the very world changed before Alvin’s eyes. The meadows and trees looked like the loudest shout of spring, vivid yellow-green with ten thousand blossoms, and the white of the chapel in the midst of it was no longer gleaming, but instead the dusty, chalky white of old bones. “Binding with briars my joys and desires,” Alvin repeated. “You ain’t got much use for religion.”

“I breathe religion with my every breath,” said the Taleswapper. “I long for visions, I search for the traces of God’s hand. But in this world I see more traces of the other. A trail of glistening slime that burns me when I touch it. God is a bit standoffish these days, Al Junior, but Satan has no fear of getting down in the muck with mankind.”

“Thrower says his church is the house of God.”

Taleswapper, he just sat there and said nothing for the longest time.

Finally Alvin asked him right out: “Have you seen devil traces in that church?”

In the days that Taleswapper had been with them, Alvin had come to know that Taleswapper never exactly lied. But when he didn’t want to get pinned down with the true answer, he’d say a poem. He said one now.

Alvin was impatient with such twisting answers. “If I want to hear something I don’t understand, I can read Isaiah.”

“Music to my ears, my lad, to compare me to the greatest of prophets.”

“He ain’t much of a prophet if nobody can understand a thing he wrote.”

“Or perhaps he meant us all to become prophets.”

“I don’t hold with prophets,” said Alvin. “Near as I can tell, they end up just as dead as the next man.” It was something he had heard his father say.

“Everybody ends up dead,” said Taleswapper. “But some who are dead live on in their words.”

“Words never stay straight,” said Alvin. “Now, when I
make
a thing, then it’s the thing I made. Like when I make a basket. It’s a basket. When it gets tore, then it’s a tored-up basket. But when I say words, they can get all twisted up. Thrower can take those same very words I said and bend them back and make them mean just contrary to what I said.”

“Think of it another way, Alvin. When you make one basket, it can never be more than one basket. But when you say words, they can be repeated over and over, and fill men’s hearts a thousand miles from where you first spoke them. Words can magnify, but things are never more than what they are.”

Alvin tried to picture that, and with Taleswapper saying it, the picture came easy to his mind. Words as invisible as air, coming out of Taleswapper’s mouth and spreading from person to person. Growing larger all the time, but still invisible.

Then, suddenly, the vision changed. He saw the words coming from the preacher’s mouth, like a trembling in the air, spreading out, seeping into everything—and suddenly it became his nightmare, the terrible dream that came on him, waking or sleeping, and spiked his heart to his spine till he like to died. The world filling up with an invisible trembling
nothing
that seeped into everything and shook it apart. Alvin could see it, rolling toward him like a huge ball, growing all the time. He knew from all the nightmares before that even if he clenched his fists it would thin itself out and seep between his fingers, and even when he closed his mouth and his eyes it would press on his face and ooze into his nose and ears and—