“So,” said Taleswapper. “With all that traffic here, it won’t be just a store and a church and a mill. There’s good white clay down on the Wobbish. Some potter’s bound to go into business, making redware and stoneware for the whole territory. “

“Sure wish they’d hurry with that,” said Calm. “My wife is sick unto death, she says, of having to serve food on tin plates.”

“That’s how towns grow,” said Taleswapper. “A good store, a church, then a mill, then a pottery. Bricks, too, for that matter. And when there’s a town—“

“David can be mayor,” said Measure.

“Not me,” said David. “All that politics business is too much. It’s Armor wants that, not me.”

“Armor wants to be king,” said Calm.

“That’s not kind,” said David.

“But it’s true,” said Calm. “He’d try to be God, if he thought the job was open.”

Measure explained to Taleswapper. “Calm and Armor don’t get along.”

“It ain’t much of a husband that calls his wife a witch,” said Calm bitterly.

“Why would he call her that?” asked Taleswapper.

“It’s sure he doesn’t call her that now,” said Measure. “She promised him to give them up. All her knacks in the kitchen. It’s a shame to make a woman run a household with just her own two hands.”

“That’s enough,” David said. Taleswapper caught just a corner of his warning look.

Obviously they didn’t trust Taleswapper enough to let him in on the truth. So Taleswapper let them know that the secret was already in his possession. “It seems to me that she uses more than Armor guesses,” said Taleswapper. “There’s a clever hex out of baskets on the front porch. And she used a calming on him before my eyes, the day I arrived in town.”

Work stopped then, for just a moment. Nobody looked at him, but for a second they did nothing. Just took in the fact that Taleswapper knew Eleanor’s secret and hadn’t told about it to outsiders. Or to Armor-of-God Weaver. Still, it was one thing for him to know, and something else for them to confirm it. So they said nothing, just resumed notching and binding the sledge.

Taleswapper broke the silence by returning to the main topic. “It’s just a matter of time before these western lands have enough people in them to call themselves states, and petition to join the American Compact. When that happens, there’ll be need for honest men to hold office.”

“You won’t find no Hamilton or Adams or Jefferson out here in the wild country,” said David.