"'Well, I just fought off that feeling, just swallowed it back and held that boy so tight I like to smothered him. Finally when I got him back into his cradle, I knew that from then on I wasn't going to carry him up those stairs no more.
“'But I couldn't just leave him alone, could I? He was my boy, and he grew up so bright and good and beautiful that I had to love him. If I stayed away, he cried cause his papa didn't play with him. But if I stayed with him, then those feelings came back, again and again. Not every day, but many a day, sometimes so fast that I did it afore I even knew what I was doing. Like the day I bumped him into the river, I just took a wrong step and tripped, but I knew even as I took that step that it was a wrong step, and that I'd trip, and that I'd bump him, I knew it, but I didn't have time to stop myself. And someday I know that I won't be able to stop myself, I won't mean to do it, but someday when that boy is under my hand, I'll kill him.'”
Taleswapper could see Miller's arm move, as if to wipe tears away from his cheek.
“Ain't that the strangest thing.” Miller asked. “A man having that kind of feeling for his own son.”
“Does that fellow have any other sons?”
“A few. Why?”
“I just wondered if he ever felt a desire to kill them.”
“Never, not a speck. I asked him that, matter of fact. I asked him, and he said not a speck.”
“Well, Mr. Miller, what did you tell him?”
Miller breathed in and out a few times. “I didn't know what to tell him. Some things are just too big for a man like me to understand. I mean, the way that water is out to kill my boy Alvin. And then this Swede fellow with his son. Maybe there's some children that wasn't meant to grow up. Do you think so, Taleswapper?”
“I think there are some children that are so important, that someone– some force in the world– may want them dead. But there are always other forces, maybe stronger forces, that want them alive.”
“Then why don't those forces show theirselves, Taleswapper? Why don't some power from heaven come and say– come to that poor Swedish man and say, 'Don't you fear no more, your boy is safe, even from you!'”
“Maybe those forces don't speak out loud in words. Maybe those forces just show you what they're doing.”
“The only force that shows itself in this world is the one that kills.”
“I don't know about that Swedish boy,” said Taleswapper, “but I'd guess that there's a powerful protection on your son. From what you said, it's a miracle he isn't dead ten times over.”
“That's the truth.”
“I think he's being watched over.”
“Not well enough.”
“The water never got him, did it?”
“It came so close, Taleswapper.”
“And as for that Swedish,boy, I know he's got somebody watching over him.”
“Who?” asked Miller.
“Why, his own father.”
“His father is the enemy,” said Miller.
“I don't think so,” said Taleswapper. “Do you know how many fathers kill their sons by accident? They're out hunting, and a shot goes wrong. Or a wagon crushes the boy, or he takes a fall. Happens all the time. Maybe those fathers just didn't see what was happening. But this Swedish man is sharp, he sees what's happening, and he watches himself, catches himself in time.”
Miller sounded a little more hopeful. “You make it sound like maybe the father ain't all bad.”
“If he were all bad, Mr. Miller, that boy would be dead and buried long ago.”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
Miller thought for a while more. So long, in fact, that Taleswapper dozed a little. He snapped awake with Miller already talking.
“–and it's just getting worse, not better. Harder to fight off those feelings. Not all that long ago, he was standing up in a loft in the– in his bam– and he was pitching down hay. And there below him was his boy, and all it would take is to let fly with the pitchfork, easiest thing in the world, he could say the pitchfork slipped and no one would ever know. Just let it fly, and stick that boy right through. And he was going to do it. Do you understand me? It was so hard to fight off those feelings, harder than ever before, and he just gave up. Just decided to have it done with, to give in. And in that very moment, why, a stranger appeared in the doorway, and shouted, 'No,' and I set down the pitchfork– that's what he said, 'I set down the pitchfork, but I was shaking so bad I could hardly walk, knowing that the stranger saw me with murder in my heart, he must think I'm the most terrible man in the world to think of killing my own boy, he can't even guess how hard I've struggled all those years before–'”
“Maybe that stranger knew something about the powers that can work inside a man's heart,” said Taleswapper.
“Do you think so?”
“Oh, I can't be sure, but maybe that stranger also saw how much that father loved the boy. Maybe the stranger was confused for a long time, but finally began to realize that the child was extraordinary, with powerful enemies. And then maybe he came to understand that no matter how many enemies the boy had, his father wasn't one of them. Wasn't an enemy. And he wanted to say something to that father.”
“What did he want to say?” Miller brushed his eyes with his sleeve again. “What do you think that stranger might want to say?”
“Maybe he wanted to say, 'You've done all you can do, and now it's too strong for you. Now you ought to send that boy away. To relatives back east, maybe, or as a prentice in some town.' That might be a hard thing for the father to do, since he loves the boy so much, but he'll do it because he knows that real love is to take the boy out of danger.”
“Yes,” said Miller.
“For that matter,” said Taleswapper, “maybe you ought to do something like that with your own boy, Alvin.”
“Maybe,” said Miller.
“He's in some danger from the water around here, wouldn't you say? Somebody's protecting him, or something. But maybe if Alvin weren't living here–”
“Then some of the dangers would go away,” said Miller.
“Think about it,” said Taleswapper.
“It's a terrible thing,” said Miller, “to send your boy away to live with strangers.”
“It's a worse thing, though, to put him in the ground.”
“Yes,” said Miller. “That's the worst thing in the world. To put your child in the ground.”
They didn't talk any more, and after a while they both slept.
The morning was cold, with a heavy frost, but Miller wouldn't even let Al Junior come up to the rock until the sun burned it away. Instead they all spent the morning preparing the ground from the cliff face to the sledge, so they could roll the stone down the mountain.
By now, Taleswapper was sure that Al Junior used a hidden power to get the millstone away from the cliff face, even if he didn't realize it himself. Taleswapper was curious. He wanted to see just how powerful this power was, so he could understand more about its nature. And since Al Junior didn't realize what he was doing, Taleswapper's experiment had to be subtle, too. “How do you dress your stone?” asked Taleswapper.
Miller shrugged. “Buhr Stone is what I used before. They all come with sickle dress.”
“Can you show me?” asked Taleswapper.
Using a corner of the rake, Miller drew a circle in the frost. Then he drew a series of arcs, radiating from the center of the circle out to the edges. Between each pair of arcs he drew a shorter arc, which began at the edge but never came closer than two-thirds of the way toward the center. “Like, that,” said Miller.
“Most millstones in Pennsylvania and Suskwahenny are quarter dress,” said Taleswapper. “You know that cut?”
“Show me.”
So Taleswapper drew another circle. It didn't show up as well, since the frost was burning off now, but it was good enough. He drew straight lines instead of curved ones from the center to the edge, and the shorter lines branched directly from the long ones and ran straight to the edge. �
��Some millers like this better, because you can keep it sharp longer. Since all the lines are straight, you get a nice even draw when you're tooling the stone.”
“I can see that,” said Miller. “I don't know, though. I'm used to those curvy lines.”
“Well, suit yourself,” said Taleswapper. “I've never been a miller, so I don't know. I just tell stories about what I've seen.”
“Oh, I don't mind you showing me,” said Miller. “Don't mind a bit.”
Al Junior stood there, studying both circles.
“I think if we once get this stone home,” said Miller “I'll try that quarter dress on it. Looks to me like it might be easier to keep up a clean grind.”
Finally the ground was dry, and Al Junior walked to the cliff face. The other boys were all down below, breaking camp or bringing the horses up to the quarry. Only Miller and Taleswapper watched as Al Junior finally carried his hammer to the cliff face. He had a little more cutting to do, to get the circle to its full depth all around.
To Taleswapper's surprise, when Al Junior set the chisel in place and gave a whang with the hammer, a whole section of stone, some six inches long, split away from the cliff face and crumbled to the ground.
“Why, that stone's as soft as coal,” said Taleswapper. “What kind of millstone can it make, if it's as weak as that?”
Miller grinned and shook his head.
Al Junior stepped away from the stone. “Oh, Taleswapper, it's hard stone, unless you know just the right place to crack it. Give it a try, you'll see.”
He held out the chisel and hammer. Taleswapper took them and approached the rock. Carefully he laid the chisel onto the stone, a slight angle away from perpendicular. Then, after a few trial taps, he laid on a blow with the hammer.
The chisel practically jumped out of his left hand, and the shock of impact was so great that he dropped the hammer. “Sorry,” he said, “I've done this before, but I must have lost the skill–”
“0h, it's just the stone,” said Al Junior. “It's kind of temperamental. It only likes to give in certain directions.”
Taleswapper inspected the place where he had tried to cut. He couldn't find the spot. His mighty blow had left no mark at all.
Al Junior picked up the tools and laid the chisel against the stone. It looked to Taleswapper as though he put it in exactly the same place. But Al acted as though he had placed it quite differently. “See, it's getting just the angle on it. Like this.”
He whanged with the hammer, the iron rang out, there was a cracking of stone, and once again crumbled stone pattered on the ground.
“I can see why you have him do all the cutting,” Taleswapper said.
“Seems like the best way,” said Miller.
In only a few minutes, the stone was fully rounded. Taleswapper said nothing, just watched to see what Al would do.
He set down his tools, walked to the millstone, and embraced it. His right hand curled around the lip of it. His left hand probed back into the cut on the other side. Alvin's cheek pressed against the stone. His eyes were closed. It looked for all the world as though he were listening to the rock.
He began to hum softly. A mindless little tune. He moved his hands. Shifted his position. Listened with the other ear.
“Well,” Alvin said, “I can't hardly believe it.”
“Believe what?” asked his father.
“Those last few cuts must have set up a real shiver in the rock. The back is already split right off.”
“You mean that millstone is standing free?” asked Taleswapper.
“I think we can rock it forward now,” said Alvin. “It takes a little rope work, but we'll get it out of there without too much trouble.”
The brothers arrived with the ropes and horses. Alvin passed a rope back behind the stone. Even though not a single cut had been made against the back, the rope dropped easily into place. Then another rope, and another, and soon they were all tugging, first left, then right, as they slowly walked the heavy stone out of its bed in the cliff face.
“If I hadn't seen it,” murmured Taleswapper.
“But you did,” said Miller.
It was only a few inches clear when they changed the ropes, passing four lines through the center hole and hitching them to a team of horses uphill of the stone. “It'll roll on downhill just fine,” Miller explained to Taleswapper. “The horses are there as a drag, pulling against it.”
“It looks heavy.”
“Just don't lie down in front of it,” said Miller.
They started it rolling, very gently. Miller took hold of Alvin's shoulder and kept the boy well back from the stone– and uphill of it, too. Taleswapper helped with the horses, so he didn't get a good look at the back surface of the stone until it was down on level ground by the sledge.
It was smooth as a baby's backside. Flat as ice in a basin. Except that it was scored in a quarter dress pattern, straight lines radiating from the lip of the center hole to the edge of the stone.
Alvin came up to stand beside him. “Did I do it right?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Taleswapper.
“It was the luckiest thing,” said the boy. “I could just feel that stone ready to split right along those lines. It just wanted to split, easy as you please.”
Taleswapper reached out and drew his finger gently along the edge of a dress cut. It stung. He brought his finger to his mouth, sucked, and tasted blood.
“Stone holds a nice sharp edge, don't it?” said Measure. He sounded as if this sort of thing happened every day. But Taleswapper could see the awe in his eyes.
“Good cut,” said Calm.
“Best one yet,” said David.
Then, with horses bracing against a rapid fall, they gently tipped it to lie on the sledge, dress side up.
“Will you do me a favor, Taleswapper?” asked Miller.
“If I can.”
“Take Alvin back home with you now. His work's done.”
“No, Papa!” Alvin shouted. He ran over to his father. “You can't make me go home now.”
“Don't need no ten-year-old boys underfoot while we're manhandling a stone that size,” said his father.
“But I've got to watch the stone, to make sure it don't split or chip, Pa!”
The older sons looked at their father, waiting. Taleswapper wondered what they hoped for. They were too old now, surely, to resent their father's particular love for his seventh son. They also must hope to keep the boy safe from harm. Yet it meant much to all of them that the stone arrive safely, unbroken, to begin its service in the mill. There could be no doubt that young Alvin had the power to keep it whole.
“You can ride with us till sundown,” Miller finally said. “By then we'll be close enough to home that you and Taleswapper can head back and spend the night in beds.”
“Fine with me,” said Taleswapper.
Alvin Junior plainly wasn't satisfied, but he didn't answer back.
They got the sledge under way before noon. Two horses in front and two behind, for stopping, were hitched to the stone itself. The stone rested on the wooden raft of the sledge, and the sledge rode atop seven or eight of the small rollers at a time. The sledge moved forward, passing over new rollers waiting in front. As the rollers emerged from the back, one of the boys immediately yanked the roller out from under the ropes hitched to the trailing team, raced to the front, and laid it in place directly behind the lead team.
It meant that each man ran about five miles for every mile the stone traveled.
Taleswapper tried to take his turn, but David, Calm, and Measure wouldn't hear of it. He ended up tending the trailing team, with Alvin perched atop one of the horses. Miller drove the leading team, walking backward half the time to make sure he wasn't going too fast for the boys to keep up.
Hour after hour they went on. Miller offered to let them stop and rest, but they seemed not to tire, and Taleswapper was amazed to see how the rollers held up. Not a one split on a rock or from the sheer weight of
the stone. They got scuffed and dented, but that was about all.
And as the sun sank to about two fingers above the horizon, awash in the ruddy clouds of the western sky, Taleswapper recognized the meadow opening up before them. They had made the whole journey in a single afternoon.
“I think I got the strongest brothers in the whole world,” Alvin murmured.
I have no doubt of it, Taleswapper said silently. You who can cut a stone from the mountain without hands, because you “find” the right fractures in the rock, it's no surprise that your brothers find in themselves exactly as much strength as you believe they have. Taleswapper tried again, as he had tried so many times before, to puzzle out the nature of the hidden powers. Surely there was some natural law that governed their use– Old Ben had always said so. And yet here was this boy who, by mere belief and desire, could cut stone like butter and give strength to his brothers. There was a theory that the hidden power came from friendship with a particular element, but which was it that could do all that Alvin did? Earth? Air? Fire? Certainly not water, for Taleswapper knew that Miller's stories were all true. Why was it that Alvin Junior could wish for something, and the earth itself would bend to his will, while others could long for things and never cause so much as a breeze to blow?
They needed lanterns inside the millhouse by the time they rolled the stone through the doors. “Might as well lay it in place tonight,” said Miller. Taleswapper imagined the fears that ran through Miller's mind. If he left the stone upright, it would surely roll in the morning and crush a particular child as he innocently carried water up to the house. Since the stone had miraculously come down from the mountain in a single day, it would be foolish to leave it anywhere but in its proper place, on the foundation of rammed earth and stone in the millhouse.
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