Even though his mother’s hand was tight-clamped over his mouth, the boy’s eyes were steady, looking right at him. And when Thrower turned back around, he found that all the grown men were looking at him expectantly. The child’s question was a challenge that he had to answer, or he’d be branded a hypocrite or fool before the very men he had come to convert.

“I suppose that if you think my blessing actually does something to change the nature of the ridgebeam,” he said, “that might be akin to ensorcelment. But the truth is that the ridgebeam itself is just the occasion. Whom I’m really blessing is the congregation of Christians who’ll gather under this roof. And there’s nothing magic about that. It’s the power and love of God we’re asking for, not a cure for warts or a charm against the evil eye.”

“Too bad,” murmured a man. “I could use a cure for warts.”

They all laughed, but the danger was over. When the ridgebeam went up, it would be a Christian act to raise it, not a pagan one.

He blessed the ridgebeam, taking care to change the usual prayer to one that specifically did not confer any special properties upon the beam itself. Then the men tugged on the rope, and Thrower sang out “0 Lord Who on the Mighty Sea” at the top of his magnificent baritone voice, to give them the rhythm and inspiration for their labors.

All the time, however, he was acutely aware of the boy Alvin Junior. It was not just because of the boy’s embarrassing challenge a moment ago. The child was as simpleminded as most children—Thrower doubted he had any dire purpose in mind. What drew him to the child was something else entirely. Not any property in the boy himself, but rather something about the people near him. They always seemed to keep him in attention. Not that they always looked at him—that would be a full-time occupation, he ran about so much. It was as if they were always aware of him, the way the college cook had always been aware of the dog in the kitchen, never speaking to it, but stepping over and around it without so much as pausing in his work.

It wasn’t just the boy’s family, either, that was so careful of him. Everyone acted the same way—the Germans, the Scandinavians, the English, newcomers and old-timers alike. As if the raising of this boy were a community project, like the raising of a church or the bridging of a river.

“Easy, easy, easy!” shouted Wastenot, who was perched near the east ridgepole to guide the heavy beam into place. It had to be just so, for the rafters to lean evenly against it and make a sturdy roof.