“You want me to take the boy?”

“No, no, I’ll not send him now that the snow’s come. Water—“

“I understand.”

“There’s a blacksmith there, and I thought he might want a prentice. Alvin’s young, but he’s big for his age, and I reckon he’ll be a bargain for the smith.”

“Prentice?”

“Well, I sure won’t make him a bond slave, now, will I? And I got no money to send him off to school.”

“I’ll take the letter. But I hope I can stay till the boy is awake, so I can say good-bye.”

“I wasn’t going to send you out tonight, was I? Nor tomorrow, with new snow deep enough to smother bunnies.”

“I didn’t know if you had noticed the weather.”

“I always notice when there’s water underfoot.” He laughed wryly, and they left the room.

Alvin Junior lay there, trying to figure why Pa wanted to send him away. Hadn’t he done right all his life, as best he could? Hadn’t he tried to help all he knew how? Didn’t he go to Reverend Thrower’s school, even though the preacher was out to make him mad or stupid? Most of all, didn’t he finally get a perfect stone down from the mountain, holding it together all the time, teaching it the way to go, and at the very end risking his leg just so the stone wouldn’t split? And now they were going to send him away.

Prentice! To a blacksmith! In his whole life he never even saw a blacksmith up to now. They had to ride three days to the nearest smithy, and Pa never let him go along. In his whole life he never even been ten mile from home one way or any other.

In fact, the more he thought about it the madder he got. Hadn’t he been begging Mama and Papa just to let him go out walking in the woods alone, and they wouldn’t let him. Had to have somebody with him all the time, like he was a captive or a slave about to run off. If he was five minutes late getting somewhere, they came to look for him. He never got to go on long trips—the longest one ever was to the quarry a few times. And now, after they kept him penned up like a Christmas goose all his life, they were set to send him off to the end of the whole earth.

It was so blame unfair that tears come to his eyes and squeezed out and tickled down his cheeks right into his ears, which felt so silly it made him laugh.

“What you laughing at?” asked Cally.

Alvin hadn’t heard him come in.

“Are you all better now? It ain’t bleeding nowhere, Al.”

Cally touched his cheek.

“You crying cause it hurts so bad?”

Alvin probably could have spoke to him, but it seemed like too much work to open up his mouth and push words out, so he kind of shook his head, slow and gentle.