Grinning Man

'Your pants is down,' said Arthur Stuart.

'Move along,' said the man. His face was turning red. His wife was watching from the doorway behind him.

'Well, you know, we was already planning to,' said Alvin, 'but as long as you can't quite kill us, for the moment at least, can I ask you a couple of questions?'

'No,' said the man. He set down the gun and pulled up his trousers.

'First off, I'd like to know the name of this town. I reckon it must be called "Friendly" or "Welcome".'

'It ain't.'

'Well, that's two down,' said Alvin. 'We got to keep guessing, or you think you can just tell us like one fellow to another?'

'How about "Pantsdown Landing"?' murmured Arthur Stuart.

'This here is Westville, Kenituck,' said the man. 'Now move along.'

'My second question is, seeing as how you folks don't have enough to share with a stranger, is there somebody who's prospering a bit more and might have something to spare for travellers as have a bit of silver to pay for it?'

'Nobody here got a meal for the likes of you,' said the man.

'I can see why this road got grass growing on it,' said Alvin. 'But your graveyard must be full of strangers as died of hunger hoping for breakfast here.'

On his knees picking up loose shot, the man didn't answer, but his wife stuck her head out the door and proved she had a voice after all. 'We're as hospitable as anybody else, except to known burglars and thieving prentices.'

Arthur Stuart let out a low whistle. 'What you want to bet Davy Crockett came this way?' he said softly.

'I never stole a thing in my life,' said Alvin.

'What you got in that poke, then?' demanded the woman.

'I wish I could say it was the head of the last man who pointed a gun at me, but unfortunately I left it attached to his neck, so he could come here and tell lies about me.'

'So you're ashamed to show the golden plough you stole?'

'I'm a blacksmith, ma'am,' said Alvin, 'and I got my tools here. You're welcome to look, if you want.'

He turned to address the other folks who were gathering, out on their porches or into the street, a couple of them armed.

'I don't know what you folks heard tell,' said Alvin, setting down his poke, 'but you're welcome to look at my tools.' He drew open the mouth of the poke and let the sides drop so his hammer, tongs, bellows, and nails lay exposed in the street. Not a sign of a plough.

Everyone looked closely, as if taking inventory.

'Well, maybe you ain't the one we heared tell of,' said the woman.

'No, ma'am, I'm the exact one, if it was a certain trapper in a coonskin cap named Davy Crockett who was telling the tale.'

'So you confess to being that Prentice Smith who stole the plough? And a burglar?'

'No, ma'am, I just confess to being a fellow as got himself on the wrong side of a trapper who talks a man harm behind his back.' He gathered up his bag over the tools and drew the mouth closed. 'Now, if you-all want to turn me away, go ahead, but don't go thinking you turned away a thief, because it ain't so. You pointed a gun at me and turned me away without a bite to eat for me or this hungry boy, without so much as a trial or a scrap of evidence, just on the word of a traveller who was as much a stranger here as me.'

The accusation made them all sheepish. One old woman, though, wasn't having any of it. 'We know Davy, I reckon,' she said. 'It's you we never set eyes on.'

'And never will again, I promise you,' said Alvin. 'You can bet I'll tell this tale wherever I travel - Westville, Kenituck, where a stranger can't get a bite to eat, and a man is guilty before he even hears the accusation.'

'If there's no truth to it,' said the old woman, 'how did you know it was Davy Crockett a-telling the tale?'

The others nodded and murmured as if this were a telling point.

"Cause Davy Crockett accused me of it to my face,' said Alvin, 'and he's the only one who ever looked at me and my boy and thought of burglaring. I'll tell you what I told him. If we're burglars, why ain't we in a big city with plenty of fine houses to rob? A burglar could starve to death, trying to find something to steal in a town as poor as this one.'

'We ain't poor,' said the man on the porch.

'You got no food to spare,' said Alvin. 'And there ain't a house here with a door that even locks.'

'See?' cried the old woman. 'He's already checked our doors to see how easy they'll be to break into!'

Alvin shook his head. 'Some folks see sin in sparrows and wickedness in willow trees.' He took Arthur Stuart by the shoulder and turned to head back out of town the way they came.

'Hold, stranger!' cried a man behind them. They turned to see a large man on horseback approaching slowly along the road. The people parted to make way for him.

'Quick, Arthur,' Alvin murmured. 'Who do you reckon this is?'

'The miller,' said Arthur Stuart.

'Good morning to you, Mr Miller!' cried Alvin in greeting.

'How did you know my trade?' asked the miller.

'The boy here guessed,' said Alvin.

The miller rode nearer, and turned his gaze to Arthur Stuart. 'And how did you guess such a thing?'

'You spoke with authority,' said Arthur Stuart, 'and you're riding a horse, and people made way for you. In a town this size, that makes you the miller.'

'And in a bigger town?' asked the miller.

'You'd be a lawyer or a politician,' said Arthur Stuart.

'The boy's a clever one,' said the miller.

'No, he just runs on at the mouth,' said Alvin. 'I used to beat him but I plumb gave out the last time. Only thing I've found that shuts him up is a mouthful of food, preferably pancakes, but we'd settle for eggs, boiled, scrambled, poached, or fried.'

The miller laughed. 'Come along to my house, not three rods beyond the commons and down the road towards the river.'

'You know,' said Alvin, 'my father's a miller.'

The miller cocked his head. 'Then how does it happen you don't follow his trade?'

'I'm well down the list of eight boys,' said Alvin. 'Can't all be millers, so I got put out to a smith. I've got a ready hand with mill equipment, though, in case you'll let me help you to earn our breakfast.'

'Come along and we'll see how much you know,' said the miller. 'As for these folks, never mind them. If some wanderer came through and told them the sun was made of butter, you'd see them all trying to spread it on their bread.' His mirth at this remark was not widely appreciated among the others, but that didn't faze him. 'I've got a shoeing shed, too, so if you ain't above a little ferrier work, I reckon there's horses to be shod.'

Alvin nodded his agreement.

'Well, go on up to the house and wait for me,' said the miller. 'I won't be long. I come to pick up my laundry.' He looked at the woman that Alvin had first spoken to. Immediately she ducked back inside the house to fetch the clothes the miller had come for.

On the road to the mill, once they were out of sight of the villagers, Alvin began to chuckle.

'What's so funny?' asked Arthur Stuart.

'That fellow with his pants around his ankles and birdshot dribbling out of his blunderbuss.'

'I don't like that miller,' said Arthur Stuart.

'Well, he's giving us breakfast, so I reckon he can't be all bad.'

'He's just showing up the town folks,' said Arthur Stuart.

'Well, excuse me, but I don't think that'll change the flavour of the pancakes.'

'I don't like his voice.'

That made Alvin perk up and pay attention. Voices were part of Arthur Stuart's knack. 'Something wrong with the way he talks?'