Seventh Son: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume I Read online

  Taleswapper fell silent, just shambling down the slope through leaves that whispered loud underfoot.

  “Well, what was it?”

  “Don’t you want to wait till you get home and read it for yourself?”

  Alvin got real mad then, madder than he meant to. “I hate it when people know something and they won’t say!”

  “No need to get your dander up, lad. I’ll tell you. What he wrote was this: The only thing I ever truly made was Americans.”

  “That don’t make sense. Americans are born.”

  “Well, now, that’s not so, Alvin. Babies are born. In England the same as in America. So it isn’t being born that makes them American.”

  Alvin thought about that for a second. “It’s being born in America.”

  “Well, that’s true enough. But along about fifty years ago, a baby born in Philadelphia was never called an American baby. It was a Pennsylvanian baby. And babies born in New Amsterdam were Knickerbockers, and babies born in Boston were Yankees, and babies born in Charleston were Jacobians or Cavaliers or some such name.”

  “They still are,” Alvin pointed out.

  “They are indeed, lad, but they’re something else besides. All those names, Old Ben figured, those names divided us up into Virginians and Orangemen and Rhode Islanders, into Whites and Reds and Blacks, into Quakers and Papists and Puritans and Presbyterians, into Dutch, Swedish, French, and English. Old Ben saw how a Virginian could never quite trust a man from Netticut, and how a White man could never quite trust a Red, because they were different. And he said to himself, If we’ve got all these names to hold us apart, why not a name to bind us together? He toyed with a lot of names that already were used. Colonials, for instance. But he didn’t like calling us all Colonials because that made us always turn our eyes back to Europe, and besides, the Reds aren’t Colonials, are they! Nor are the Blacks, since they came as slaves. Do you see the problem?”

  “He wanted a name we could all share the same,” said Alvin.

  “Just right. There was one thing we all had in common. We all lived on the same continent. North America. So he thought of calling us North Americans. But that was too long. So—”

  “Americans.”

  “That’s a name that belongs to a fisherman living on the rugged coast of West Anglia as much as to a baron ruling his slavehold in the southwest part of Dryden. It belongs as much to the Mohawk chief in Irrakwa as to the Knickerbocker shopkeeper in New Amsterdam. Old Ben knew that if people could once start thinking of themselves as Americans, we’d become a nation. Not just a piece of some tired old European country, but a single new nation here in a new land. So he started using that word in everything he wrote. Poor Richard’s Almanac was full of talk about Americans this and Americans that. And Old Ben wrote letters to everybody, saying things like, Conflict over land claims is a problem for Americans to solve together. Europeans can’t possibly understand what Americans need to survive. Why should Americans die for European wars? Why should Americans be bound by European precedents in our courts of law? Inside of five years, there was hardly a person from New England to Jacobia who didn’t think of himself as being, at least partly, an American.”

  “It was just a name.”

  “But it is the name by which we call ourselves. And it includes everyone else on this continent who’s willing to accept the name. Old Ben worked hard to make sure that name included as many people as possible. Without ever holding any public office except postmaster, he single-handedly turned a name into a nation. With the King ruling over the Cavaliers in the south, and the Lord Protector’s men ruling over New England in the north, he saw nothing but chaos and war ahead, with Pennsylvania smack in the middle. He wanted to forestall that war, and he used the name ‘American’ to fend it off. He made the New Englanders fear to offend Pennsylvania, and made the Cavaliers bend over backward trying to woo Pennsylvanian support. He was the one who agitated for an American Congress to establish trade policies and uniform land law.

  “And finally,” Taleswapper continued, “just before he invited me over from England, he wrote the American Compact and got the seven original colonies to sign it. It wasn’t easy, you know—even the number of states was the result of a great deal of struggle. The Dutch could see that most of the immigrants to America were English and Irish and Scotch, and they didn’t want to be swallowed up—so Old Ben allowed them to divide New Netherland into three colonies so they’d have more votes in the Congress. With Suskwahenny split off from the land claimed by New Sweden and Pennsylvania, another squabble was put to rest.”

  “That’s only six states,” said Alvin.

  “Old Ben refused to allow anyone to sign the Compact unless the Irrakwa were included as the seventh state, with firm borders, with Reds governing themselves. There were plenty of people who wanted a White man’s nation, but Old Ben wouldn’t hear of it. The only way to have peace, he said, was for all Americans to join together as equals. That’s why his Compact doesn’t allow slavery or even bonding. That’s why his Compact doesn’t allow any religion to have authority over any other. That’s why his Compact doesn’t let the government close down a press or silence a speech. White, Black, and Red; Papist, Puritan, and Presbyterian; rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief—we all live under the same laws. One nation, created out of a single word.”

  “American.”

  “Now do you see why he calls it his greatest deed?”

  “How come the Compact itself ain’t more important?”

  “The Compact was just the words. The name ‘American’ was the idea that made the words.”

  “It still doesn’t include the Yankees and the Cavaliers, and it didn’t stop war, neither, cause the Appalachee folk are still fighting against the King.”

  “But it does include all those people, Alvin. Remember the story of George Washington in Shenandoah? He was Lord Potomac in those days, leading King Robert’s largest army against that poor ragtag band that was all Ben Arnold had left. It was plain to see that in the morning, Lord Potomac’s Cavaliers would overrun that little fort and seal the doom of Tom Jefferson’s free-mountain rebellion. But Lord Potomac had fought beside those mountain men in the wars against the French. And Tom Jefferson had been his friend in days gone by. In his heart he could not bear to think of the morrow’s battle. Who was King Robert, that so much blood should be shed for him? All these rebels wanted was to own their land, and not have the King set barons over them, to tax them dry and turn them into slaves as surely as any Black in the Crown Colonies. He didn’t sleep at all that night.”

  “He was praying,” said Alvin.

  “That’s the way Thrower tells it,” Taleswapper said sharply. “But no one knows. And when he spoke to the troops the next morning, he didn’t say a word about prayer. But he did speak about the word Ben Franklin made. He wrote a letter to the King, resigning from his command and rejecting his lands and titles. He didn’t sign it ‘Lord Potomac,’ he signed it ‘George Washington.’ Then he rose up in the morning and stood before the blue-coat soldiers of the King and told them what he had done, and told them that they were free to choose, all of them, whether to obey their officers and go into battle, or march instead in defense of Tom Jefferson’s great Declaration of Freedom. He said, ‘The choice is yours, but as for me—’”

  Alvin knew the words, as did every man, woman, and child on the continent. Now the words meant all the more to him, and he shouted them out: “‘My American sword will never shed a drop of American blood!’”

  “And then, when most of his army had gone and joined the Appalachee rebels, with their guns and their powder, their wagons and their supplies, he ordered the senior officer of the men loyal to the King to arrest him. ‘I broke my oath to the King,’ he said. ‘It was for the sake of a higher good, but still I broke my oath, and I will pay the price for my treason.’ He paid, yes sir, paid with a blade through his neck. But how many people outside the court of the King think it was really treason?”


  “Not a one,” said Alvin.

  “And has the King been able to fight a single battle against the Appalachees since that day?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Not a man on that battlefield in Shenandoah was a citizen of the United States. Not a man of them lived under the American Compact. And yet when George Washington spoke of American swords and American blood, they understood the name to mean themselves. Now tell me, Alvin Junior, was old Ben wrong to say that the greatest thing he ever made was a single word?”

  Alvin would have answered, but right then they stepped up onto the porch of the house, and before they could get to the door, it swung open, and Ma stood there looking down at him. From the look on her face, Alvin knew that he was in trouble this time, and he knew why.

  “I meant to go to church, Ma!”

  “Lots of dead people meant to go to heaven,” she answered, “and they didn’t get there, neither.”

  “It was my fault, Goody Faith,” said Taleswapper.

  “It surely was not, Taleswapper,” she said.

  “We got to talking, Goody Faith, and I’m afraid I distracted the boy.”

  “The boy was born distracted,” said Ma, never taking her eyes from Alvin’s face. “He takes after his father. If you don’t bridle and saddle him and ride him to church, he never gets there, and if you don’t nail his feet to the floor of the church he’s out that door in a minute. A ten-year-old boy who hates the Lord is enough to make his mother wish he’d never been born.”

  The words struck Alvin Junior to the heart.

  “That’s a terrible thing to wish,” said Taleswapper. His voice was real quiet, and Ma finally lifted her gaze to the old man’s face.

  “I don’t wish it,” she finally said.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” said Alvin Junior.

  “Come inside,” she said. “I left church to come and find you, and now there’s not time to get back before the sermon ends.”

  “We talked about a lot of things, Mama,” Alvin said. “About my dreams, and about Ben Franklin, and—”

  “The only story I want to hear from you,” said Ma, “is the sound of hymn singing. If you won’t go to the church, then you’ll sit in the kitchen with me and sing me hymns while I fix the dinner.”

  So Alvin didn’t get to see Old Ben’s sentence in Taleswapper’s book, not for hours. Ma kept him singing and working till dinnertime, and after dinner Pa and the big boys and Taleswapper sat around planning tomorrow’s expedition to bring a millstone down from the granite mountain.

  “I’m doing it for you,” Pa said to Taleswapper, “so you better come along.”

  “I never asked you to bring a millstone.”

  “Not a day since you’ve been here that you haven’t said something about what a shame it is that such a fine mill gets used as nothing but a haybarn, when people hereabouts need good flour.”

  “I only said it the once, that I remember.”

  “Well, maybe so,” said Pa, “but every time I see you, I think about that millstone.”

  “That’s because you keep wishing the millstone had been there when you threw me.”

  “He don’t wish that!” shouted Cally. “Cause then you’d be dead!”

  Taleswapper just grinned, and Papa grinned back. And they went on talking about this and that. Then the wives brought the nephews and nieces over for Sunday supper, and they made Taleswapper sing them the laughing song so many times that Alvin thought he’d scream if he heard another chorus of “Ha, Ha, Hee.”

  It wasn’t till after supper, after the nephews and nieces were all gone, that Taleswapper brought out his book.

  “I wondered if you’d ever open that book,” Pa said.

  “Just waiting for the right time.” Then Taleswapper explained about how people wrote down their most important deed.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to write in there,” Pa said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t let you write in it, not yet. You haven’t even told me the story of your most important deed.” Taleswapper’s voice got even softer. “Maybe you didn’t actually do your most important deed.”

  Pa looked just a little angry then, or maybe a little afraid. Whichever it was, he got up and came over. “Show me what’s in that book, that other people thought was so all-fired important.”

  “Oh,” said Taleswapper. “Can you read?”

  “I’ll have you know I got a Yankee education in Massachusetts before I ever got married and set up as a miller in West Hampshire, and long before I ever came out here. It may not amount to much compared to a London education like you got, Taleswapper, but you don’t know how to write a word I can’t read, lessen it’s Latin.”

  Taleswapper didn’t answer. He just opened the book. Pa read the first sentence. “The only thing I ever truly made was Americans.” Pa looked up at Taleswapper. “Who wrote that?”

  “Old Ben Franklin.”

  “The way I heard it the only American he ever made was illegitimate.”

  “Maybe Al Junior will explain it to you later,” said Taleswapper.

  While they said this, Alvin wormed his way in front of them, to stare at Old Ben’s handwriting. It looked no different from other men’s writing. Alvin felt a little disappointed, though he couldn’t have said what he expected. Should the letters be made of gold? Of course not. There was no reason why a great man’s words should look any different on a page than the words of a fool.

  Still, he couldn’t rid himself of frustration that the words were so plain. He reached out and turned the page, turned many pages, riffling them with his fingers. The words were all the same. Grey ink on yellowing paper.

  A flash of light came from the book, blinding him for a moment.

  “Don’t play with the pages like that,” said Papa. “You’ll tear one.”

  Alvin turned around to look at Taleswapper. “What’s the page with light on it?” he asked. “What does it say there?”

  “Light?” asked Taleswapper.

  Then Alvin knew that he alone had seen it.

  “Find the page yourself,” said Taleswapper.

  “He’ll just tear it,” said Papa.

  “He’ll be careful,” said Taleswapper.

  But Papa sounded angry. “I said stand away from that book, Alvin Junior.”

  Alvin started to obey, but felt Taleswapper’s hand on his shoulder. Taleswapper’s voice was quiet, and Alvin felt the old man’s fingers moving in a sign of warding. “The boy saw something in the book,” said Taleswapper, “and I want him to find it again for me.”

  And, to Alvin’s surprise, Papa backed down. “If you don’t mind getting your book ripped up by that careless lazy boy,” he murmured, then fell silent.

  Alvin turned to the book and carefully thumbed the pages, one at a time. Finally one fell into place, and from it came a light, which at first dazzled him, but gradually subsided until it came only from a single sentence, whose letters were on fire.

  “Do you see them burning?” asked Alvin.

  “No,” said Taleswapper. “But I smell the smoke of it. Touch the words that burn for you.”

  Alvin reached out and gingerly touched the beginning of the sentence. The flame, to his surprise, was not hot, though it did warm him. It warmed him through to the bone. He shuddered as the last cold of autumn fled from his body. He smiled, he was so bright inside. But almost as soon as he touched it, the flame collapsed, cooled, was gone.

  “What does it say?” asked Mama. She was standing now, across the table from them. She wasn’t such a good reader, and the words were upside down to her.

  Taleswapper read. “A Maker is born.”

  “There hasn’t been a Maker,” said Mama, “since the one who changed the water into wine.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s what she wrote,” said Taleswapper.

  “Who wrote?” demanded Mama.

  “A slip of a girl. About five years ago.”

  “What was the story that went with her sentence?” asked
Alvin Junior.

  Taleswapper shook his head.

  “You said you never let people write unless you knew their story.”

  “She wrote it when I wasn’t looking,” said Taleswapper. “I didn’t see it till the next place I stopped.”

  “Then how did you know it was her?” asked Alvin.

  “It was her,” he answered. “She was the only one there who could have opened the hex I kept on the book in those days.”

  “So you don’t know what it means? You can’t even tell me why I saw those letters burning?”

  Taleswapper shook his head. “She was an innkeeper’s daughter, if I remember rightly. She spoke very little, and when she did, what she said was always strictly truthful. Never a lie, even to be kind. She was considered to be something of a shrew. But as the proverb says, If you always speak your mind, the evil man will avoid you. Or something like that.”

  “Her name?” asked Mama. Alvin looked up in surprise. Mama hadn’t seen the glowing letters, so why did she look so powerful eager to know about who wrote them?

  “Sorry,” said Taleswapper. “I don’t remember her name right now. And if I remembered her name, I wouldn’t tell it, nor will I tell whether I know the place where she lived. I don’t want people seeking her out, troubling her for answers that she may not want to give. But I will say this. She was a torch, and saw with true eyes. So if she wrote that a Maker was born, I believe it, and that’s why I let her words stay in the book.”

  “I want to know her story someday,” said Alvin. “I want to know why the letters were so bright.”

  He looked up and saw Mama and Taleswapper looking steadily into each other’s eyes.

  And then, around the fringes of his own vision, where he could almost but not quite see it, he sensed the Unmaker, trembling, invisible, waiting to shiver the world apart. Without even thinking about it, Alvin pulled the front of his shirt out of his pants and knotted the corners together. The Unmaker wavered, then retreated out of sight.