Seventh Son

“And that's how it is with you, too?” asked Thrower. “Risk everything, for land?”

Armor looked at his wife Eleanor and smiled. She didn't smile back, Thrower noticed, but he also noticed that her eyes were beautiful and deep, as if she knew secrets that made her solemn even though she was joyful in her heart.

“Not land the way farmers own it, I'm no farmer, I'll tell you that,” said Armor. “There's other ways to own land. You see, Reverend Thrower, I give them credit now because I believe in this country. When they come to trade with me, I make them tell me the names of all their neighbors, and make rough maps of the farms and streams where they live, and the roads and rivers along their way here. I make them carry letters that other folks writ, and I write their letters for them and ship them on back east to folks they left behind. I know where everything and everybody in the whole upper Wobbish and Noisy River country is and how to get there.”

Reverend Thrower squinted and smiled. “In other words, Brother Armor, you're the government.”

“Let's just say that if there comes a time when a government would come in handy, I'll be ready to serve,” said Armor. “And in two years, three years, when more folks come through, and some more start making things, like bricks and pots and blackware, cabinets and kegs, beer and cheese and fodder, well, where do you think they'll come to sell it or to buy? To the store that gave them credit when their wives were longing for the cloth to make a bright-colored dress, or they needed an iron pot or a stove to keep out the winter cold.”

Philadelphia Thrower chose not to mention that he had somewhat less confidence in the likelihood of grateful people staying loyal to Armor-of-God Weaver. Besides, thought Thrower, I might be wrong. Didn't the Savior say that we should cast our bread upon the waters? And even if Armor doesn't achieve all he dreams of, he will have done a good work, and helped to open this land to civilization.

The food was ready. Eleanor dished out the stew. When she set a fine white bowl in front of him, Reverend Thrower had to smile. “You must be right proud of your husband, and all that's he's doing.”

Instead of smiling demurely, as Thrower expected that she would, Eleanor almost laughed aloud. Armor-of-God wasn't half so delicate. He just plain guffawed. “Reverend Thrower, you're a caution,” said Armor. “When I'm up to my elbows in candle tallow, Eleanor's up to hers in soap. When I'm writing up folks' letters and having them delivered, Eleanoes drawing up maps and taking down names for our little census book. There ain't a thing I do that Eleanor isn't beside me, and not a thing she does that I'm not beside her. Except maybe her herb garden, which she cares for more than me. And Bible reading, which I care for more than her.”

“Well, it's good she's a righteous helpmeet for her husband,” said Reverend Thrower.

“We're helpmeets for each other,” said Armor-of-God, “and don't you forget it.”

He said it with a smile, and Thrower smiled back, but the minister was a little disappointed that Armor was so henpecked that he had to admit right out in the open that he wasn't in charge of his own business or his own home. But what could one expect, considering that Eleanor had grown up in that strange Miller family? The oldest daughter of Alvin and Faith Miller could hardly be expected to bend to her husband as the Lord intended.

The venison, however, was the best that Thrower had ever tasted. “Not gamy a bit,” he said. “I didn't think wild deer could taste like this.”

“She cuts off the fat,” said Armor, “and throws in some chicken.”

“Now you mention it,” said Thrower, “I can taste it in the broth.”

“And the deer fat goes into the soap,” said Armor. “We never throw anything away, if we can think of any use for it.”

“Just as the Lord intended,” said Thrower. Then he fell to eating. He was well into his second bowl of stew and his third slice of bread when he made a comment that he thought was a jesting compliment. “Mrs. Weaver, your cooking is so good that it almost makes me believe in sorcery.”

Thrower was expecting a chuckle, at the most. Instead, Eleanor looked down at the table just as ashamed as if he had accused her of adultery. And Armor-of-God sat up stiff and straight. “I'll thank you not to mention that subject in this house,” he said.

Reverend Thrower tried to apologize. “I wasn't serious about it,” he said. “Among rational Christians that sort of thing is a joke, isn't it? A lot of superstition, and I–”

Eleanor got up from the table and left the room.

“What did I say?” Thrower asked.

Armor sighed. “Oh, there's no way you could know,” he said. “It's a quarrel that goes back to before we were married, when I first come out to this land. I met her when she came with her brothers to help build my first cabin– the soapmaking shed, now. She started to scatter spearmint on my floor and say some kind of rhyme, and I shouted for her to stop it and get out of my house. I quoted the Bible, where it says, You shall not suffer a witch to live. It made for a right testy half hour, you may be sure.”

“You called her a witch, and she married you?”

“We had a few conversations in between.”

“She doesn't believe in that sort of thing anymore, does she?”

Armor knitted his brows. “It ain't a matter of believing, it's a matter of doing, Reverend. She doesn't do it anymore. Not here, not anywhere. And when you– sort of halfway accused her of it, well, it made her upset. Because it's a promise to me, you see.”

“But when I apologized, why did she–”

“Well, there you are. You have your way of thinking, but you can't tell her that come-hithers and herbs and incantations got no power, because she's seen some things herself that you can't just explain away.”

“Surely a man like you, well read in the scripture and acquainted with the world, surely you can convince your wife to give up the superstitions of her childhood.”

Armor gently laid his hand on Reverend Thrower's wrist. “Reverend, I got to tell you something that I didn't think I'd ever have to tell a grown man. A good Christian refuses to allow that stuff in his life because the only proper way to bring the hidden powers into your life is through prayer and the grace of the Lord Jesus. It ain't because it doesn't work.”

“But it doesn't,” said Thrower. “The powers of heaven are real, and the visions and visitations of angels, and all the miracles attested in the scripture. But the powers of heaven have nothing at all to do with young couples falling in love, or curing the croup, or getting chickens to lay, or all the other silly little things that the ignorant common people do with their so-called hidden wisdom. There's not a thing that's done by doodlebugging or hexing or whatever that can't be explained by simple scientific investigation.”

Armor didn't answer for the longest while. The silence made Thrower quite uncomfortable, but he had no idea what more he could say. It hadn't occurred to him before that Armor could possibly believe in such things. It was a startling perspective. It was one thing to abstain from witchery because it was nonsense, and quite another to believe in it and abstain because it was unrighteous. It occurred to Thrower that this latter view was actually more e

Before he could find a way to express this thought, however, Armor leaned back on his chair and changed the subject entirely.

“Reckon your church is just about done.”

With relief, Reverend Thrower followed Armor onto safer ground. “The roof was finished yesterday, and today they were able to clap all the boards on the walls. It'll be watertight tomorrow, with shutters on the windows, and when we get them glazed and the doors hung it'll be tight as a drum.”