Seventh Son

Miller swung up onto the wagon seat. “Measure's on ahead, felling trees for the sledge. And Wastenot and Wantnot are staying back here, riding circuit from house to house.” He gri

Taleswapper gri

It was a good long way up to the quarry. On the road they passed the ruins of a wagon with a split millstone right in the middle of it. “That was our first try,” said Miller. “But an axle dried out and jammed up coming down this steep hill, and the whole wagon fell in under the weight of the stone.”

They came near a good-sized stream, and Miller told about how they had tried to float two millstones down on a raft, but both times the raft just up and sank. “We've had bad luck,” said Miller, but from the set of his face he seemed to take it personally, as if someone had set out to make things fail.

“That's why we're using a sledge and rollers this time,” said Al Junior, leaning over the back of the seat. “Nothing can fall off, nothing can break, and even if it does, it's all just logs, and we got no shortage of replacements.”

“As long as it don't rain,” said Miller. “Nor snow.”

“Sky looks clear enough,” said Taleswapper.

“Sky's a liar,” said Miller. “When it comes to anything I want to do, water always gets in my way.”

They got to the quarry when the sun was full up, but still far from noon. Of course, the trip back would be much longer. Measure had already felled six stout young trees and about twenty small ones. David and Calm set right to work, stripping off branches and rounding them smooth as possible. To Taleswapper's surprise, it was Al Junior who picked up the sack of stonecutting tools and headed up into the rocks.

“Where are you going?” asked Taleswapper.

“Oh, I've got to find a good place for cutting,” said Al Junior.

“He's got an eye for stone,” said Miller. But he wasn't saying all he knew.

“And when you find the stone, what'll you do then?” asked Taleswapper.

“Why, I'll cut it.” Alvin sauntered on up the path with all the arrogance of a boy who knows he's about to do a man's job.

“Got a good hand for stone, too,” said Miller.

“He's only ten years old,” said Taleswapper.

“He cut the first stone when he was six,” said Miller.

“Are you saying it's a knack?”

“I ain't saying nothing.”

“Will you say this, Al Miller? Tell me if by chance you are a seventh son.”

“Why do you ask?”

“It's said, by those who know such things, that a seventh son of a seventh son is born with the knowledge of how things look under the surface. That's why they make such good dowsers.”

“Is that what they say?”

Measure walked up, faced his father, put his hands on his hips, and looked plain exasperated. “Pa, what harm is there in telling him? Everybody in the whole country roundabout here knows it.”

“Maybe I think Taleswapper here knows more than I want him to know already.”

“That's a right ungracious thing to say, Pa, to a man who's proved himself a friend twice over.”

“He doesn't have to tell me anything he doesn't want me to know,” said Taleswapper.

“Then I'll tell you,” said Measure. “Pa is a seventh son, all right.”

“And so is Al Junior,” said Taleswapper. “Am I right? You've never mentioned it, but I'd guess that when a man gives his own name to a son other than his firstborn, it's bound to be his seventh born.”

“Our oldest brother Vigor died in the Hatrack River only a few minutes after Al Junior was born,” said Measure.

“Hatrack,” said Taleswapper.

“Do you know the place?” asked Measure.

“I know every place. But for some reason that name makes me think I should have remembered it before now, and I can't think why. Seventh son of a seventh son. Does he conjure the millstone out of the rock?”

“We don't talk about it like that,” said Measure.

“He cuts,” said Miller. “Just like any stonecutter.”

“He's a big boy, but he's still just a boy,” said Taleswapper.

“Let's just say,” said Measure, “that when he cuts the stone it's a mite softer than when I cut it.”

“I'd appreciate it,” said Miller, “if you'd stay down here and help with the rounding and notching. We need a nice tight sledge and some smooth true rollers.” What he didn't say, but Taleswapper heard just as plain as day, was, Stay down here and don't ask too many questions about Al Junior.

So Taleswapper worked with David and Measure and Calm all morning and well into the afternoon, all the time hearing a steady chinking sound of iron on stone. Alvin Junior's stonecutting set the rhythm for all their work, though no one commented on it.

Taleswapper wasn't the sort of man who could work in silence, though. Since the others weren't too conversational at first, he told stories the whole time. And since they were grown men instead of children, he told stories that weren't all adventure and heroics and tragic death.

Most of the afternoon, in fact, he devoted to the sap of John Adams: How his house was burnt down by a Boston mob after he won the acquittal of ten women accused of witchcraft. How Alex Hamilton invited him to Manhattan Island, where the two of them set up a law practice together. How in ten years they managed to maneuver the Dutch government to allow unlimited immigration of non-Dutch-speaking people, until English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish were a majority in New Amsterdam and New Orange, and a large minority in New Holland. How they got English declared a second official language in 1780, just in time for the Dutch colonies to become three of the seven original states under the American Compact.

“I'll bet the Dutchmen hated those boys, by the time they were through,” said David.

“They were better politicians than that,” said Taleswapper. “Why, both of them learned to speak Dutch better than most Dutchmen, and had their children grow up speaking Dutch in Dutch schools. They were so dadgum Dutch, boys, that when Alex Hamilton ran for governor of New Amsterdam and John Adams ran for president of the United States, they both did better in the Dutch parts of New Netherland than they did among the Scotch and Irish.”

“Reckon if I run for mayor, I could get those Swedes and Dutchmen downriver to vote for me?” said David.

“I wouldn't even vote for you,” said Calm.

“I would,” said Measure. “And I hope someday you do run for mayor.”

“He can't run for mayor,” said Calm. “This ain't even a proper town.”

“It will be,” said Taleswapper. “I've seen it before. Once you get this mill working, it won't be long before three hundred people dwell between your mill and Vigor Church.”

“You think so?”

“Right now people come in to Armor's store maybe three or four times a year,” said Taleswapper. “But when they can get flour, they'll come in much more often. They'll prefer your mill to any other around here for some time, too, since you've got a smooth road and good bridges.”

“If the mill makes money,” Measure said, “Pa's sure to send for a Buhr Stone from France. We had one back in West Hampshire, before the flood broke up the mill. And a Buhr Stone means fine white flour.”

“And white flour means good business,” said David. “We older ones, we remember.” He smiled wistfully. “We were almost rich there, once.”

"So," said Taleswapper. "With all that traffic here, it won't be just a store and a church and a mill. There's good white clay down on the Wobbish. Some potter's bound to go into business, making redware and stoneware for the whole territory. "

“Sure wish they'd hurry with that,” said Calm. “My wife is sick unto death, she says, of having to serve food on tin plates.”

“That's how towns grow,” said Taleswapper. “A good store, a church, then a mill, then a pottery. Bricks, too, for that matter. And when there's a town–”