Orson Card - Prentice Alvin

It was only right at this minute that Alvin realized that Cal hadn't exactly invited him to go along on this job-- it was Martin Hill what asked for Alvin to come, and before that, the job had been Cal's alone.

"I didn't mean to butt into your work here," said Alvin. "It just never entered my head you wouldn't want my help. I know I wanted your company."

Seemed like everything Alvin said only made Cal seethe inside till now his face was red and his fists were clenched tight enough to. strangle a snake. "I had a place here," said Cal. "Then you come back. All fancy school taught like you are, using all them big words. And healing people without so much as touching them, just walking into their house and talking a spell, and when you leave everybody's all healed up from whatever ailed them."

Alvin didn't even know folks had noticed he was doing it. Since nobody said a thing about it, he figured they all thought it was natural healing. "I can't think how that makes you mad, Cal. It's a good thing to make folks better."

All of a sudden there were tears running down Cal's cheeks. "Even laying hands on them, I can't always fix things up," said Cal. "Nobody even asks me no more."

It never occurred to Alvin that maybe Cal was doing his own healings. But it made good sense. Ever since Alvin left, Cal had pretty much been what Alvin used to be in Vigor Church, doing all his works. Seeing how their knacks were so much alike, he'd come close to taking Alvin's place. And then he'd done things Alvin never did when he was small, like going about healing people as best he could. Now Alvin was back, not only taking back his old place, but also besting Cal at things that only Cal had ever done. Now who was there for Cal to be?

"I'm sorry," said Al. "But I can teach you. That's what I was starting to do.

"I never seen them bits and what-not you're talking about," said Cal. "I didn't understand a thing you talked about. Maybe I just ain't got a knack as good as yours, or maybe I'm too dumb, don't you see? All I can be is the best I figure out for myself. And I don't need you proving to me that I can't never measure up. Martin Hill asking for you on this job, cause he knows you can make a better fence. And there you are, not even using your knack to split the rails, though I know you can, just to show me that without your knack you're a match for me. "

"That's not what I meant," said Alvin. "I just don't use my knack around--"

"Around people as dumb as me," said Cal.

"I was doing a bad job explaining," said Alvin, "but if you'll let me, Cal, I can teach you how to change iron into--"

"Gold," said Cal, his voice thick with scorn. "What do you think I am? Trying to fool me with an alchemist's tales! If you knew how to do that, you wouldn't've come home poor. You know I once used to think you were the beginning and end of the world. I thought, when Al comes home, it'll be like old times, the two of us playing and working together, talking all the time, me tagging on, doing everything together. Only it turns out you still think I'm just a little boy, you don't say nothing to me except 'here's another rail' and 'pass the beans, please.' You took over all the jobs folks used to look to me to do, even one as simple as making a stout rail fence."

"Job's yours," said Alvin, shouldering his hammer. There was no point in trying to teach Cal anything-- even if he could learn it, he could never learn it from Alvin. "I got other work to do, and I won't detain you any longer."

"Detain me," said Cal. "Is that a word you learned in a book, or from that ugly old teacher lady in Hatrack River that your ugly little mix-up boy talks about?"

Hearing Miss Larner and Arthur Stuart so scornfully spoken of, that made Alvin burn inside, especially since he had in fact learned to use phrases like "detain you any longer" from Miss Larner. But Alvin didn't say anything to show his anger. He just turned his back and walked off, back down the line of the finished fence. Cal could use his own knack and finish the fence himself; Alvin didn't even care about collecting the wages he'd earned in most of a day's work. He had other things on his mind-- memories of Miss Larner, partly, but mostly he was upset about how Cal hadn't wanted Alvin to teach him. Here he was the person in the whole world who had the best chance to learn it all as easy as a baby learning to suck, since it was his natural knack-- only he didn't want to learn it, not from Alvin. It was something Alvin never would have thought possible, to turn down the chance to learn something, just because the teacher was somebody you didn't like. Come to think of it, though, hadn't Alvin hated going to school with Reverend Thrower, cause of how Thrower always made him feel like he was somehow bad or evil or stupid or something? Could it be that Cal hated Alvin the way Alvin had hated Reverend Thrower? He just couldn't understand why Cal was so angry. Of all people in the world, Cal had no reason to be jealous of Alvin, because he could come closest to doing all that Alvin did; yet for that very reason, Cal was so jealous he'd never learn it, not without going through every step of figuring it out for himself.

At this rate, I'll never build the Crystal City, cause I'll never be able to teach Making to another soul.

It was a few weeks after that when Alvin finally tried again to talk to somebody, to see if he really could teach Making. It was on a Sunday, in Measure's house, where Alvin and Arthur Stuart had gone to take their dinner. It was a hot day, so Delphi laid a cold table-- bread and cheese and salt ham and smoked turkey-- and they all went outside to take the afternoon in the shade of Measure's north-facing kitchen porch.

"Alvin, I invited you and Arthur Stuart here today for a reason," said Measure. "Delphi and me, we already talked it over, and said a few things to Pa and Ma, too."

"Sounds like it must be pretty terrible, if it took that much talking. I I

"Reckon not," said Measure. "It's just-- well, Arthur Stuart, here, he's a fine boy, and a good hard worker, and good company to boot."

Arthur Stuart grinned. "I sleep solid, too," he said.

"Fine sleeper," said Measure. "But Ma and, Pa ain't exactly young no more. I think Ma's used to doing things in the kitchen all her own way."

"That she is," sighed Delphi, as if she had more than a little reason for knowing exactly how set in her ways Goody Miller was.

"And Pa, well, he's tiring out. When he gets home from the mill, he needs to lie down, have plenty of quiet around him."

Alvin thought he knew where the conversation was heading. Maybe his folks just weren't the quality of Old Peg Guester or Gertie Smith. Maybe they couldn't take a mix-up boy into their home or their heart. It made him sad to think of such a thing about his own folks, but he knew right off that he wouldn't even complain about it. He and Arthur Stuart would just pack up and set out on a road leading-- nowhere in particular. Canada, maybe. Somewhere that a mix-up boy'd be full welcome.

"Mind you, they didn't say a thing like that to me," said Measure. "In fact, I sort of said it all to them. You see, me and Delphi, we got a house somewhat bigger than we need, and with three small ones Delphi'd be glad of a boy Arthur Stuart's age to help with kitchen chores like he does."

"I can make bread all myself," said Arthur Stuart. "I know Mama's recipe by heart. She's dead."

"You see?" said Delphi. "If he can make bread himself sometimes, or even just help me with the kneading, I wouldn't end up so worn out at, the end of the week."

"And it won't be long before Arthur Stuart could help out in my work in the fields," said Measure.

"But we don't want you to think we're looking to hire him on like a servant," said Delphi.

"No, no!" said Measure. "No, we're thinking of him like another son, only growed up more than my oldest Jeremiah, who's only three and a half, which makes him still pretty much useless as a human being, though at least be isn't always trying to throw himself into the creek to drown like his sister Shiphrah-- or like you when you were little, I might add."