“The only story I want to hear from you,” said Ma, “is the sound of hymn singing. If you won’t go to the church, then you’ll sit in the kitchen with me and sing me hymns while I fix the dinner.”

So Alvin didn’t get to see Old Ben’s sentence in Taleswapper’s book, not for hours. Ma kept him singing and working till dinnertime, and after dinner Pa and the big boys and Taleswapper sat around planning tomorrow’s expedition to bring a millstone down from the granite mountain.

“I’m doing it for you,” Pa said to Taleswapper, “so you better come along.”

“I never asked you to bring a millstone.”

“Not a day since you’ve been here that you haven’t said something about what a shame it is that such a fine mill gets used as nothing but a haybarn, when people hereabouts need good flour.”

“I only said it the once, that I remember.”

“Well, maybe so,” said Pa, “but every time I see you, I think about that millstone.”

“That’s because you keep wishing the millstone had been there when you threw me.”

“He don’t wish that!” shouted Cally. “Cause then you’d be dead!”

Taleswapper just grinned, and Papa grinned back. And they went on talking about this and that. Then the wives brought the nephews and nieces over for Sunday supper, and they made Taleswapper sing them the laughing song so many times that Alvin thought he’d scream if he heard another chorus of “Ha, Ha, Hee.”

It wasn’t till after supper, after the nephews and nieces were all gone, that Taleswapper brought out his book.

“I wondered if you’d ever open that book,” Pa said.

“Just waiting for the right time.” Then Taleswapper explained about how people wrote down their most important deed.

“I hope you don’t expect me to write in there,” Pa said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t let you write in it, not yet. You haven’t even told me the story of your most important deed.” Taleswapper’s voice got even softer. “Maybe you didn’t actually do your most important deed.”

Pa looked just a little angry then, or maybe a little afraid. Whichever it was, he got up and came over. “Show me what’s in that book, that other people thought was so all-fired important.”

“Oh,” said Taleswapper. “Can you read?”

“I’ll have you know I got a Yankee education in Massachusetts before I ever got married and set up as a miller in West Hampshire, and long before I ever came out here. It may not amount to much compared to a London education like you got, Taleswapper, but you don’t know how to write a word I can’t read, lessen it’s Latin.”

Taleswapper didn’t answer. He just opened the book. Pa read the first sentence. “The only thing I ever truly made was Americans.” Pa looked up at Taleswapper. “Who wrote that?”

“Old Ben Franklin.”

“The way I heard it the only American he ever made was illegitimate.”