Hands and face washed, he was clean enough that Goody Faith allowed him to carry the loaves of bread to ihe table—“as long as you don’t let the bread touch that gamy shirt of yours.” Then Taleswapper took his place in line, bowl in hand, as the whole family trooped into the kitchen and emerged with the majority of a hog parceled out among them.

It was Faith, not Miller himself, who called on one of the girls to pray, and Taleswapper took note that Miller didn’t so much as close his eyes, though all the children had bowed heads and clasped hands. It was as if prayer was a thing he tolerated, but didn’t encourage. Without having to ask, Taleswapper knew that Alvin Miller and the preacher down in that fine white church did not get along at all. Taleswapper decided Miller might even appreciate a proverb from his book: “As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.”

The meal was not a time of chaos, to Taleswapper’s surprise. Each child in turn reported what he did that day, and all listened, sometimes giving advice or praise. Finally, when the stew was gone and Taleswapper was dabbing at the last traces in his bowl with a sop of bread, Miller turned to him, just like he had to everyone else in the family.

“And your day, Taleswapper. Was it well spent?”

“I walked some miles before noon, and climbed a tree,” said Taleswapper. “There I saw a steeple, which led me to a town. There a Christian man feared my hidden powers, though he saw none of them, and so did a preacher, though he said he didn’t believe I had any. Still, I was looking for a meal and a bed, and a chance to work to earn them, and a woman said that the folks at the end of a particular wagon track would take me in.”

“That would be our daughter Eleanor,” said Faith.

“Yes,” said Taleswapper. “I see now that she has her mother’s eyes, which are always calm no matter what is happening.”

“No, friend,” said Faith. “It’s just that these eyes have seen, such times that since then it hasn’t been easy to alarm me.”

“I hope before I leave to hear the story of such times,” Taleswapper said.

Faith looked away as she put another slab of cheese on a grandchild’s bread.

Taleswapper went right on with his account of the day, however, not wishing to show that she might have embarrassed him by not answering. “That wagon track was most peculiar,” he said. “There were covered bridges over brooks that a child could wade in, and a man could step over. I hope to hear the story of those bridges before I go.”

Again, no one would meet his gaze.