“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.