Prentice Alvin ttoam-3

by Orson Scott Card

  “Cold chicken be mighty good after a hot day's work,” said Arthur Smart, in a voice that was exactly Gertie Smith's, except pitched in a child's high voice.

  Alvin grinned at him and opened the basket. They fell to eating like sailors who'd been on short rations for half the voyage, and in no time they was both lying there on their backs, bellies packed full, belching now and then, watching the white clouds move like placid cattle grazing across the sky.

  The sun was getting low toward the west now. Definitely time to pack in for the day, but Alvin just couldn't feel good about that. “Best you get home,” he said. “Maybe if you just run that empty basket back up to Gertie Smith's, you can get in without your Ma gets too upset at you–”

  “What you doing now?”

  “Got windows to frame and re-hang.”

  “Well I got walls to finish rasping down,” said Arthur Stuart.

  Alvin grinned, but he also knew that what he planned to do to the windows wasn't a thing he wanted witnesses for. He had no intention of actually doing a lot of carpentry, and he didn't ever let anybody watch him do something obvious with his knack. “Best you go home now,” said Alvin.

  Arthur sighed.

  “You been a good help to me, but I don't want you getting in trouble.”

  To Alvin's surprise, Arthur just returned his own words back to him in his own voice. “You been a good help to me, but I don't want you getting in trouble.”

  “I mean it,” said Alvin.

  Arthur Stuart rolled over, got up, came over and sat down astride of Alvin's belly– which Arthur often did, but it didn't feel none too comfortable at the moment, there being about a chicken and a half inside that belly.

  “Come on, Arthur Stuart,” said Alvin.

  "I never told nobody bout no redbird, " said Arthur Stuart.

  Well, that just sent a chill right through Alvin. Somehow he'd figured that Arthur Stuart was just too young that day more than three years ago to even remember that anything happened. But Alvin should've knowed that just because Arthur Stuart didn't talk about something didn't mean that he forgot. Arthur never forgot so much as a caterpillar crawling on a leaf.

  If Arthur Stuart remembered the redbird, then he no doubt remembered that day when it was winter out of season, when Alvin's knack dug a well and made the stone come clean of dirt without using his hands. And if Arthur Stuart knew all about Alvin's knack, then what point was there in trying to sneak around and make it secret?

  “All right then,” said Alvin. “Help me hang the windows.” Alvin almost added, “as long as you don't tell a soul what you see.” But Arthur Stuart already understood that. It was just one of the things that Arthur Stuart understood.

  They finished before dark, Alvin cutting into the wood of the window frames with his bare fingers, shaping what was just wood nailed into wood until it was windows that could slide free, up and down. He made little holes in the sides of the window frames and whittled plugs of wood to fit them, so the window would stay up as far as a body might want. Of course, he didn't quite whittle like a natural man, since each stroke of the knife took off a perfect arc. Each plug was done in about six passes of the knife.

  Meantime Arthur Stuart finished the rasping, and then they swept out the house, using a broom of course, but Alvin helped with his knack so that every scrap of sawdust and iron filings and flakes of moss and ancient dust ended up outside the house. Only thing they didn't do was try to cover the strip of open dirt down the middle of the springhouse, where once the stream flowed. That'd take felling a tree to get the planks, and anyway Alvin was starting to get a little scared, seeing how much he'd done and how fast he'd done it. What if somebody came tonight and realized that all this work was done in a single long afternoon? There'd be questions. There'd be guesses.

  “Don't tell anybody that we did this all in a day,” said Alvin.

  Arthur Stuart just grinned. He'd lost one of his front teeth recently ,so there was a spot where his pink gums showed up. Pink as a White person's gums, Alvin thought. Inside his mouth he's no different from a White. Then Alvin had this crazy idea of God taking all the people, in the world who ever died and flaying them and hanging up their bodies like pigs in the butcher's shop, just meat and bones hanging there by the heel, even the guts and the head gone, just meat. And then God would ask folks like the Hatrack River School Board to come in and pick out which was Black folks and which was Red and which was White. They couldn't do it. Then God would say, "Well why in hell did you say that this one and this one and this one couldn't go to school with this one and this one and this one?" What answer would they have then? Then God would say, "You people, you're all the same rare meat under thi skin. But I tell you, I don't like your flavor. I'm going to toss your beefsteaks to the dogs. "

  Well, that was such a funny idea that Alvin couldn't help but tell it to Arthur, Stuart, and Arthur Stuart laughed just as hard as Alvin. Only after it was all said and the laughing was done did Alvin remember that maybe nobody'd told Arthur Stuart about how his ma tried to get him into the school and,the school board said no. “You know what this is all about?”

  Arthur Stuart didn't understand the question, or maybe he understood it even better than Alvin did. Anyways, he answered, “Ma's hoping the teacher lady'll learn me to read and write here in this springhouse.”

  “Right,” said Alvin. No point in explaining about the school; then. Either Arthur Stuart already knew how some White folks felt about Blacks, or else he'd find out soon enough wiihout Alvin telling him now.

  “We're all the same rare meat,” said Arthur Stuart. He used a funny voice that Alvin had never heard before.

  “Whose voice was that?” asked Alvin.

  “God, of course,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “Good imitation,” said Alvin. He was being funny.

  “Sure is,” said Arthur Stuart. He'wasn't.

  * * *

  Turned out nobody came to the springhouse for a couple of days and more. It was Monday of the next week when Horace ambled into the smithy. He came early in the morning, at a time when Makepeace was most likely to be there, ostentatiously “teaching” Alvin to do something that Alvin already knew how to do.

  “My masterpiece was a ship's anchor,” said Makepeace. “Course, that was back in Newport, afore I come west. Them ships, them whaling ships, they weren't like little bitty houses and wagons. They needed real ironwork. A boy like you, you do well enough out here where they don't know better, but you'd never make a go of it there, where a smith has to be a man.”

  Alvin was used to such talk. He let it roll right off him. But he wits grateful anyway when Horace came in, putting an end to Makepeace's brag.

  After all the good-mornings and howdy-des, Horace got right to business. “I just come by to see when you'll have a chance to get started on the springhouse.”

  Makepeace raised an ey ebrow and looked at Alvin. Only then did Alvin realize that he'd never mentioned the job to Makepeace.

  “It's already done, sir,” Alvin said to Makepeace– for all the world as if Makepeace's unspoken question had been, “Are you finished yet?” and not, “What is this springhouse job the man's talking about?”

  “Done?” said Horace.

  Alvin turned to him. “I thought you must've noticed. I thought you were in a hurry, so I did it right off in my free time.”

  “Well, let's go see it,” said Horace. “I didn't even think to look on my way down here.”

  “Yes, I'm dying to look at it myself,” said the smith.

  “I'll just stay here and keep working,” said Alvin.

  “No,” said Makepeace. “You come along and show off this work you done in your free time.” Alvin didn't hardly notice how Makepeace emphasized the last two words, he was so nervous to show off what be done at the springhouse. He only barely had sense enough to drop the keys he made into his pocket.

  They made their way up the hill to the springhouse. Horace was the kind of man who could tell when someb
ody did real good work, and wasn't shy to say so. He fingered the fancy new hingework and admired the lock afore he put in the key. To Alvin's pride it turned smooth and easy. The door swung open quiet as a leaf in autumn. If Horace noticed the hexes, he didn't let on. It was other things he noticed, not hexery.

  “Why, you cleaned off the walls,” said Horace.

  “Arthur Stuart did that,” said Alvin, “Rasped it off neat as you please.”

  “And this stove– I tell you, Makepeace, I didn't figure the price of a new stove in this.”

  “It isn't a new stove,” said Alvin. “I mean, begging your pardon, but it was a brokedown stove we kept for the scrap, only when I looked it over I saw we could fix it up, so why not put it here?”

  Makepeace gave Alvin a cool look, then turned back to Horace. "That don't mean it's free, of course.'

  “Course not,” said Horace. “If you bought it for scrap, though–”

  “Oh, the price won't be too terrible high.”

  Horace admired how it joined to the roof. "Perfect work," he said. He turned around. To Alvin he looked a little sad, or maybe just resigned. "Have to cover the rest of the floor, of course.

  “Not our line of work,” said Makepeace Smith.

  “Just talking to myself, don't mind me.” Horace went over to the east window, pushed against it with his fingers, then raised it. He found the pegs on the sill and put them into the third hole on each side, then let the window fall back down to rest against the pegs. He looked at the pegs, then out the window, then back at the pegs, for a long time. Alvin dreaded having to explain how he, not trained as a fine carpenter, managed to hang such a fine window. Worse yet, what if Horace guessed that this was the original window, not a new one? That could only be explained by Alvin's knack– no carpenter could get inside the wood to cut out a sliding window like that.

  But all Horace said was, “You did some extra work.”

  “Just figured it needed doing,” said Alvin. If Horace wasn't going to ask about how he did it, Alvin was just as happy not to explain.

  "I didn't reckon to have it done so fast," said Horace. "Nor to have so much done. The lock looks to be an expensive one, and the stove– I hope I don't have to pay for all at once. "

  Alvin almost said, You don't have to pay for any of it, but of course that wouldn't do. It was up to Makepeace Smith to decide things like that.

  But when Horace turned around, looking for an answer, he didn't face Makepeace Smith, he stood square on to Alvin. “Makepeace Smith here's been charging full price for your work, so I reckon I shouldn't pay you any less.”

  Only then did Alvin realize that he made a mistake when he said he did the work in his free time, since work a prentice did in his official free time was paid for direct to the prentice, and not the master. Makepeace Smith never gave Alvin free time– whatever work anyone wanted done, Makepeace would hire Alvin out to do, which was his right under the prentice contract. By calling it free time, Alvin seemed to be saying that Makepeace had given him time off to earn money for himself.

  “Sir, I-”

  Makepeace spoke up before Alvin could explain the mistake. “Full price wouldn't be right,” said Makepeace. “Alvin getting so close to the end of his contract, I thought he should start trying things on his own, see how to handle money. But even though the work looks right to you, to me it definitely looks second rate. So half price is right. I figure it took at least twenty hours to do all this– right, Alvin?”

  It was more like ten, but Alvin just nodded. He didn't know what to say, anyway, since his master was obviously not committed to telling the plain truth about this job. And the job he did would have been at least twenty hours– two full days' labor– for a smith without Alvin's knack.

  "So," said Makepeace, "between Al's labor at half price and the cost of the stove and the iron and all, it comes to fifteen dollars.

  Horace whistled and rocked back on his heels.

  “You can have my labor free, for the experience,” Alvin said.

  Makepeace glared at him.

  “Wouldn't dream of it,” said Horace. “The Savior said the laborer is worthy of his hire. It's the sudden high price of iron I'm a little skeptical about.”

  “It's a stove,” said Makepeace Smith.

  Wasn't till I fixed it, Alvin said silently.

  “You bought it as scrap iron,” said Horace. “As you said about Al's labor, full price wouldn't be right.”

  Makepeace sighed. "For old times' sake, Horace, cause you brought me here and helped set me up on my own when I came west eighteen years ago. Nine dollars. "

  Horace didn't smile, but he nodded. “Fair enough. And since you usually charge four dollars a day for Alvin's hire, I guess his twenty hours at half price comes to four bucks. You come by the house this afternoon, Alvin, I'll have it for you. And Makepeace, I'll pay you the rest when the inn fills up at harvest time.”

  “Fair enough,” said Makepeace.

  “Glad to see that you're giving Alvin free time now,” said Horace. “There's been a lot of folks criticizing you for being so tight with a good prentice, but I always told them, Makepeace is just biding his time, you'll see.”

  “That's right,” said Makepeace. “I was biding my time.”

  “You don't mind if I tell other folks that the biding's done?”

  “Alvin still has to do his work for me,” said Makepeace.

  Horace nodded wisely. “Reckon so,” he said. “He works for you mornings, for himself afternoons– is that right? That's the way most fair-minded masters do it, when a prentice gets so near to journeyman.”

  Makepeace began to turn a little red. Alvin wasn't surprised. He could see what was happening– Horace Guester was being like a lawyer for him, seizing on this chance to shame Makepeace into treating Alvin fair for the first time in more than six years of prenticing. When Makepeace decided to pretend that Alvin really did have free time, why, that was a crack in the door, and Horace was muscling his way through by main force. Pushing Makepeace to give Alvin half days, no less! That was surely too much for Makepeace to swallow.

  But Makepeace swallowed. “Half days is fine with me. Been meaning to do that for some time.”

  “So you'll be working afternoons yourself now, right, Makepeace?”

  Oh, Alvin had to gaze at Horace with pure admiration. He wasn't going to let Makepeace get away with lazing around and forcing Alvin to do all the work at the smithy.

  “When I work's my own business, Horace.”

  “Just want to tell folks when they can be sure to find the master in, and when the prentice.”

  “I'll be in all day.”

  “Why, glad to hear it,” said Horace. “Well, fine work, I must say, Alvin. Your master done a good job teaching you, and you been carefuler than I ever seen before. You make sure to come by this evening for your four dollars.”

  “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “I'll just let you two get back to work now,” said Horace. “Are these the only two keys to the door?”

  “Yes sir,” said Alvin. “I oiled them up so they won't rust.”

  “I'll keep them oiled myself. Thanks for the rerninder.”

  Horace opened the door and pointedly held it open till Makepeace and Alvin came on out. Horace carefully locked the door, as they watched. He turned and grinned at Alvin. “Maybe first thing I'll have you do is make a lock this fine for my front door.” Then he laughed out loud and shook his head. “No, I reckon not. I'm an innkeeper. My business is to let people in, not lock them out. But there's others in town who'll like the look of this lock.”

  “Hope so, sir. Thank you.”

  Horace nodded again, then took a cool gaze at Makepeace as if to say, Don't forget all you promised to do here today. Then he ambled off up the path to the roadhouse.

  Alvin started down the hill to the smithy. He could hear Makepeace following him, but Alvin wasn't exactly hoping for a conversation with his master just now. As long as Makepeace said not
hing, that was good enough for Alvin.

  That lasted only till they were both inside the smithy.

  “That stove was broke to hell and back,” said Makepeace.

  That was the last thing Alvin expected to hear, and the most fearful. No chewing-out for claiming free time; no attempt to take back what he'd promised in the way of work schedule. Makepeace Smith had remembered that stove better than Alvin expected.

  “Looked real bad, all right,” said Alvin.

  “No way to fix it without recasting,” said Makepeace. “If I didn't know it was impossible, I would've fixed it myself.”

  “I thought so, too,”' said Alvin. “But when I looked it over–”

  The look on Makepeace Smith's face silenced him. He knew. There was no doubt in Alvin's mind. The master knew what his prentice boy could do. Alvin felt the fear of being found out right down to his bones; it felt just like hide-and-go-find with his brothers and sisters when he was little, back in Vigor Church. The worst was when you were the last one still hid and unfound, all the waiting and waiting, and then you hear the footsteps coming, and you tingle all over, you feel it in every part of your body, like as if your whole self was awake and itching to move. It gets so bad you want to jump out and scream, “Here I am! I'm here!” and then run like a rabbit, not to the haven tree, but just anywhere, just run full out until every muscle of your body was wore out and you fell down on the earth. It was crazy– no good came of such craziness. But that's how it felt playing with his brothers and sisters, and that's how it felt now on the verge of being found out.

  To Alvin's surprise, a plow smile spread across his master's face. “So that's it,” said Makepeace. “That's it. Ain't you full of surprises. I see it now. Your pa said when you was born, he's the seventh son of a seventh son. Your way with horses, sure, I knew about that. And what you done finding that well, sense like a doodlebug, I could see that, too. But now.” Makepeace grinned. “Here I thought you were a smith like never was born, and all the time you was fiddling with it like an alchemist.”

  “No sir,” said Alvin.