Mama Squirrel led them up to the garret, which was hot, with a ceiling that sloped in only one direction, from the east-facing front of the house to the back.

"It's an oven up here on a hot day," said Mama Squirrel. "And it gets mighty cold in winter. But it keeps off the rain, which around here is no mean gift, and the beds and linens are clean and the floor is swept once a week-more often, if you know how to handle a broom."

"I been known to kill spiders with one," said Alvin.

"We kill no living thing in this house," said Mama Squirrel.

"I don't know how you can eat a blamed thing without causing something that was once alive to die," said Alvin.

"You got me there," said Mama Squirrel. "We got no mercy on the plant kingdom, except we're loath to cut down a living tree."

"But spiders are safe here."

"They live out their natural span," said Mama Squirrel. "This is a house of peace."

"A house of silence, too, judging by the school downstairs."

"School?" asked Mama Squirrel. "I hope you won't accuse us of breaking the law and holding a school that might teach blacks and reds and mixes how to read and write and cipher."

Alvin grinned. "I reckon there must be a law that defines a school as a place where children are required to recite aloud."

"I'm surprised at the breadth of your knowledge of the legal code of Nueva Barcelona," said Mama Squirrel. "The law forbids us to cause a child to read or recite aloud, or to write on slate or paper, or to do sums."

"So you only teach them to subtract and multiply and divide?" said Arthur Stuart.

"And count," said Mama Squirrel. "We're law-abiding people."

"And these children-from the neighborhood?"

"From this house," said Mama Squirrel. "They're all mine."

"You are a truly amazing woman," said Alvin.

"What God gives me, who am I to refuse?" she said.

"This is an orphanage, isn't it?" said Alvin.

"It's a boardinghouse," said Mama Squirrel. "For travelers. And, of course, my husband and I and all our children live here."

"I suppose it's illegal to operate an orphanage," said Alvin.

"An orphanage," said Mama Squirrel, "would be obliged to teach the Catholic religion to all the white children, while the children of color must be auctioned off by the age of six."

"So I imagine that many a poor black woman would rather leave her impossible baby at your door than at the door of any orphanage," said Alvin.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Mama Squirrel. "I gave birth to every one of these children myself. Otherwise they'd be taken away from me and turned over to an orphanage."

"From the ages, I'd say you had them in bunches of five or six at a time," said Alvin.

"I give birth when they're still very small," said Mama Squirrel. "It's my knack."

Alvin set down his poke, took a step closer, and enfolded her in a wide-armed embrace. "I'm glad to be paying for the privilege of staying in such a merciful house."

"My, what strong arms you have," said Mama Squirrel.

"Oh, now you done it," said Arthur Stuart. "He'll be bragging on them arms all month now."

"You wouldn't need any wood-chopping," said Alvin. "Of wood from trees as died naturally, of course. And no stomping any ticks or snakes as come out of the woodpile."

"The biggest help," said Mama Squirrel, "would be the hauling of water."

"I heard there wasn't no wells in Nueva Barcelona," said Alvin. "On account of the ground water being brackish."

"We collect rain like everybody else, but it's not enough, even without washing the children more than once a week. So for poor folks, the water wagon fills up the public fountain twice a week. Today's a water day."

"You show me what to tote it in, and I'll come back full as many times as you want," said Alvin.

"I'll go along with him to whisper encouragement," said Arthur Stuart.

"Arthur Stuart is so noble of heart," said Alvin, "that he drinks his fill, then comes back here and pisses it out pure."

"You two bring lying to the level of music."

"You should hear my concerto for two liars and a whipped dog," said Alvin.

"But we don't actually whip no dog," Arthur Stuart assured her quickly. "We trained an irritable cat to do the dog's part."

Mama Squirrel laughed out loud and shook her head. "I swear I don't know why Margaret Larner would marry such a one as you."

"It was an act of faith," said Alvin.

"But Margaret Larner is such a torch, she needs no faith to judge a man's heart."

"It's his head she had to take on faith," said Arthur Stuart.

"Let's go get some water," said Alvin.

"Not unless I get me to a privy house first," said Arthur Stuart.

"Oh, fie on me," said Mama Squirrel. "I'm not much of hospitaler, specially in front of an innkeeper's son and son-in-law." She bustled over to the stairs and led Arthur Stuart down.

Alone in the garret, Alvin looked about for a place to store his poke while he lived in this place. There wasn't much in the way of hiding places there. The floorboards didn't fit tight together, so there was a chance someone might catch a glimpse of something if he hid the golden plow in the floor.

So he had no choice but to go to the chimney and pull out a few loose bricks. Not that they were loose to start with. He sort of helped them to achieve looseness until he had a gap big enough to push the plow through.

He pulled the plow from the sack. In his hand it was warm, and he felt a faint kind of motion inside it, as if some thin golden fluid swirled within.

"I wonder what you're good for," Alvin whispered to the plow. "I been carrying you asleep in my poke for lo these many years, and I still ain't found a use for you."

The plow didn't answer. It might be alive, in some fashion, but that didn't give it the power to speak.

Alvin pushed it through the opening into the sooty coolness of the chimney. There being no convenient shelf to set it on, and Alvin not being disposed to let it drop three-and-a-half stories to the hearth on the main floor, he had no choice but to wedge it into a corner. He had to let his doodlebug into the bricks to soften them up like cork while he pushed the plow in, then harden them up around the plow to hold it firmly in place. Then he closed the hole and bound bricks to mortar once again. There was no sign that this corner of the chimney had been changed in any way. It was as good a hiding place as he was likely to find. Depending on who was doing the looking.

Now his poke contained nothing but a change of clothes and his writing materials. He could leave it lying on his bed without a second thought.

Downstairs, he found Arthur Stuart just washing up after using the privy. Two three-year-old girls were watching him like they'd never seen handwashing before.

When he was done, instead of reaching for a towel-and there was a cloth not one step away, hanging from a hook- Arthur Stuart just held his hands over the basin. Alvin watched as the water evaporated so rapidly that Arthur Stuart suddenly screeched and rubbed his hands on his pants. To warm them up.

"Sometimes," said Alvin, "even a maker lets things happen naturally."

Arthur Stuart turned around, embarrassed. "I didn't know it would get so cold."

"You can get frostbite doing it so fast," said Alvin.

'Wow you tell me."

"How was I supposed to know you were too lazy to reach for a towel?"

Arthur Stuart sniffed. "I got to practice, you know."

"In front of witnesses, no less." He looked at the two girls.

"They don't know what I done," said Arthur Stuart.

"Which makes it all the more pathetic that you were showing off for them."

"Someday I'll get sick of you bossing and judging me all the time," said Arthur Stuart.

"Maybe then you won't come along on journeys I told you not to come on."