“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.