Then Measure began yelling from the crossbeam, where he dangled by his arms, having caught himself after the collapse of the scaffolding. Wantnot and Calm climbed up and got him down safely. Reverend Thrower had no thought for that. All he could think about was a six-year-old boy who could stand under a falling ridgebeam, and the beam would break and make room for him. Like the Red Sea parting for Moses, on the right hand and the left.

“Seventh son,” murmured Wastenot. The boy sat astride the fallen ridgebeam, just west of the break.

“What?” asked Reverend Thrower.

“Nothing,” said the young man.

“You said ‘Seventh son,”’ said Thrower. “But it’s little Calvin who’s the seventh.”

Wastenot shook his head. “We had another brother. He died a couple minutes after Al was born.” Wastenot shook his head again. “Seventh son of a seventh son.”

“But that makes him devil’s spawn,” said Thrower, aghast.

Wastenot looked at him with contempt. “Maybe in England you think so, but around here we look on such to be a healer, maybe, or a doodlebug, and a right good one of whatever he is.” Then Wastenot thought of something and grinned. “’Devil’s spawn,”’ he repeated, maliciously savoring the words. “Sounds like hysteria to me.”

Furious, Thrower stalked out of the church.

He found Mistress Faith sitting on a stool, holding Alvin Junior on her lap and rocking him as he continued to whimper. She was scolding him gently. “Told you not to run without looking, always underfoot, can’t never hold still, makes a body go plumb lunatic looking after you—“ Then she saw Thrower standing before her, and fell silent.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll not bring him back here.”

“For his safety, I’m glad,” said Thrower. “If I thought my churchhouse had to be built at the cost of a child’s life, I’d sooner preach in the open air all the days of my life.”

She looked close at him and knew that he meant it with his whole heart. “It’s no fault of yourn,” she said. “He’s always been a clumsy boy. Seems to live through scrapes that’d kill an ordinary child.”

“I’d like—I’d like to understand what happened in there.”

“Ridgepole shivered, of course,” she said. “It happens sometimes.”

“I mean—how it happened to miss him. The beam split before it touched his head. I want to feel his head, if I may—“

“Not a mark on him,” she said.

“I know. I want to feel it to see if—“