“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.”