Because at the ripe old age of twenty-six, Alvin Miller, who had become Alvin Smith, and whose secret name was Alvin Maker; this Alvin, whose birth had been surrounded by such portents, who had been so watched over by good and evil as he was growing up; this same Alvin who had thought he had a great mission and work in his life, had long since come to realize that all those portents came to nothing, that all that watching had been wasted, because the power of makery had been given to the wrong man. In Alvin's hands it had all come to nothing. Whatever he made got unmade just as fast or faster. There was no overtaking the Unmaker in his dire work of unraveling the world. He couldn't teach more than scraps of the power to anyone else, so it's not as though his plan of surrounding himself with other makers was ever going to work.

He couldn't even save the life of his own baby, or learn languages the way Arthur Stuart could, or see the paths of the future like Margaret, or any of the other practical gifts. He was just a journeyman smith who by sheerest accident got himself a golden plow which he'd been carrying around in a poke for five years now, and for what?

Alvin had no idea why God had singled him out to be the seventh son of a seventh son, but whatever God's plan might have been at first, Alvin must have muffed it by now, because even the Unmaker seemed to be leaving him alone. Once he had been so formidable that he was surrounded by enemies. Now even his enemies had lost interest in him. What clearer sign of failure could you find than that?

It was this dark mood that rode in his heart all the way into Barcy proper, and perhaps it was the cloud that it put in his visage that made the first two houses turn them away.

He was so darkhearted by the time they come to the third house that he didn't even try to be personable. "I'm a journeyman smith from up north," he said, "and this boy is passing as my slave but he's not, he's free, and I'm blamed if I'm going to make him sleep down with the servants. I want a room with two good beds, and I'll pay faithful but I won't have anybody treating this young fellow like a servant."

The woman at the door looked from him to Arthur Stuart and back again. "If you make that speech at every door, I'm surprised you ain't got you a mob of men with clubs and a rope followin' behind."

"Mostly I just ask for a room," said Alvin, "but I'm in a bad mood."

"Well, control your tongue in future," said the woman. "It happens you chose the right door for that speech, by sheer luck or perversity. I have the room you want, with the two beds, and this being a house where slavery is hated as an offense against God, you'll find no one quarrels with you for treating this young man as an equal."

Squirrel and Moose

Alvin held out his hand. "Alvin Smith, ma'am."

She shook hands with him. "I heard of an Alvin Smith what has a wife named Margaret, who goes from place to place striking terror into the hearts of them as loves to tell a lie."

"She puts a bit of a scare into them as hates lying, too," said Arthur Stuart.

"As for me," said Alvin, "I'm neutral on lying, seeing as how there's times when the truth just hurts people."

"I'm none too fanatic about telling the truth, myself," said the woman. "For instance, I believe every girl ought to grow up in the firm belief that she's clever and pretty, and every boy that he's strong and good-hearted. In my experience, what starts out as a fib turns into a hope and if you keep it up long enough, it starts to be mostly true."

"Wish I'd known that fifteen years ago," said Alvin. "Too late to do much with this boy here."

"I'm pretty," said Arthur Stuart. "I figure that's all I need to get by in this world."

"You see the problem?" said Alvin.

"If you're Margaret Larner's husband," said the woman, "then I'll bet this pretty lad here is her brother, Arthur Stuart, who from the look of him is born to be royalty."

"I wouldn't cross the road to be a king," said Arthur Stuart. "Though if they brought the throne to me, I might sit in it for a spell."

By now they were inside the house, Alvin holding onto his poke, but Arthur surrendering his bag to the woman readily enough.

"Y'all afraid of climbing stairs?" she asked.

"I always climb six flights before breakfast, just so I can be closer to heaven when I say my prayers," said Alvin.

She looked at him sharply. "I didn't know you was a praying man."

Alvin was abashed. His lighthearted joke had apparently struck something dear to her.

"I've been known to pray, ma'am," said Alvin. "I didn't mean to talk light about it, if this is a praying house."

"It is," said the woman.

"Seems to me," said Arthur Stuart, "that it's also a house where folks are all named 'you,' cause they haven't heard about 'names' yet."

She laughed. "I've had so many names in my life that I've lost track by now. Around here, folks just call me Mama Squirrel. And let's have no idle speculation about how I got that name. My husband gave it to me, when he decided that he was Papa Moose."

"Always good to accept the hospitality of moose and squirrel," said Alvin, "though this is the first time I've been able to do it under a roof."

"This ain't no hospitality here," said Mama Squirrel. "You're paying for it, and not cheap, either. We've got a lot of mouths to feed."

It wasn't till they got to the third floor that they saw what she meant. In a large open room with windows all along one wall, a sturdy brown-haired man with a look of beatific patience was standing in front of about thirty-five children who looked to be from five to twelve, who were sitting shoulder to shoulder on four rows of benches. About a quarter of the children where black, a few were red, some were white with hints of France or Spain or England, but more than half were of races so mixed that it was hard to guess what land on earth had not contributed to their parentage.

Mama Squirrel silently mouthed the words "Papa Moose," and pointed at the man.

Only when her husband took a step, which dipped and rolled like a boat caught in a sudden breeze, did Alvin notice that his right foot was crippled. There had been no attempt to find a shoe to fit his twisted foot. Instead the foot was sheathed and bound to the man's shin with leather straps, which also held a thick pad under his heel. But he showed no sign of pain or embarrassment, and the children did not titter or mock. Either the children were miraculously good or Papa Moose was a man of impenetrable dignity.

He was leading the children in silent recitation of words on a slate. He would print four or five words, hold them up so all could see, and then point to a child. The child would then rise, and mouth-but not speak aloud-each word as Papa Moose pointed at it. He would nod or shake his head, depending on correctness, and then point at another child. In the silence, the faint popping and smacking of lips and tongue sounded surprisingly loud.

The words currently on the slate were "measure," "assemble," "serene," and "peril." Without meaning to, Alvin found himself making them into some kind of poem or song. The words seemed to belong to him somehow. Of course, it helped that the first word, measure, was the name of Alvin's beloved older brother. Assemble was what he was trying to do, drawing together those who might be able to learn the knack of makery. But he had walked away from his community of makers in Vigor Church because he could not be patient with his own inabilities as a teacher. Serene, therefore, was what he most needed to become. And peril? He seemed to find it wherever he went.