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Authors: Orson Scott Card

Prentice Alvin: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume III (26 page)

BOOK: Prentice Alvin: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume III
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“Miss Larner, I won’t beat around the bush. You got something that I need.”
“Oh?”
“That is, not me, to say it proper, but my son, Arthur Stuart.”
If she recognized that it was the King’s proper name, she gave no sign. “And what might he need from me, Goody Guester?”
“Book-learning.”
“That’s what I’ve come to provide to all the children in Hatrack River, Goody Guester.”
“Not Arthur Stuart. Not if those pin-headed cowards on the school board have their way.”
“Why should they exclude your son? Is he over-age, perhaps?”
“He’s the right age, Miss Larner. What he ain’t is the right color.”
Miss Larner waited, no expression on her face.
“He’s Black, Miss Larner.”
“Half-Black, surely,” offered the teacher.
Naturally the teacher was trying to figure how the innkeeper’s wife came to have her a half-Black boy-baby. Old Peg got some pleasure out of watching the teacher act polite while she must surely be cringing in horror inside herself. But it wouldn’t do to let such a thought linger too long, would it? “He’s adopted, Miss Larner,” said Old Peg. “Let’s just say that his Black mama got herself embarrassed with a half-White baby.”
“And you, out of the goodness of your heart—”
Was there a nasty edge to Miss Larner’s voice? “I wanted me a child. I ain’t taking care of Arthur Stuart for pity. He’s
my
boy now.”
“I see,” said Miss Larner. “And the good people of Hatrack
River have determined that their children’s education will suffer if half-Black ears should hear my words at the same time as pure White ears.”
Miss Larner sounded nasty again, only now Old Peg dared to let herself rejoice inside, hearing the way Miss Larner said those words. “Will you teach him, Miss Larner?”
“I confess, Goody Guester, that I have lived in the City of Quakers too long. I had forgotten that there were places in this world where people of small minds would be so shameless as to punish a mere child for the sin of being born with skin of a tropical hue. I can assure you that I will refuse to open school at all if your adopted son is not one of my pupils.”
“No!” cried Old Peg. “No, Miss Larner, that’s going too far.”
“I am a committed Emancipationist, Goody Guester. I will not join in a conspiracy to deprive any Black child of his or her intellectual heritage.”
Old Peg didn’t know what in the world an intellectual heritage was, but she knew that Miss Larner was in too much sympathy. If she kept up this way, she’d be like to ruin everything. “You got to hear me out, Miss Larner. They’ll just get another teacher, and I’ll be worse off, and so will Arthur Stuart. No, I just ask that you give him an hour in the evening, a few days a week. I’ll make him study somewhat in the daytime, to learn proper what you teach him quick. He’s a bright boy, you’ll see that. He already knows his letters—he can A it and Z it better than my Horace. That’s my husband, Horace Guester. So I’m not asking more than a few hours a week, if you can spare it. That’s why we worked up this springhouse, so you could do it and none the wiser.”
Miss Larner arose from where she sat on the edge of her bed, and walked to the window. “This is not what I ever imagined—to teach a child in secret, as if I were committing a crime.”
“In
some
folks’ eyes, Miss Larner—”
“Oh, I have no doubt of that.”
“Don’t you Quakers have silent meetings? All I ask is a kind of quiet meeting, don’t you know—”
“I am not a Quaker, Goody Guester. I am merely a human being
who refuses to deny the humanity of others, unless their own acts prove them unworthy of that noble kinship.”
“Then you’ll teach him?”
“After hours, yes. Here in my home, which you and your husband so kindly provided, yes. But in secret? Never! I shall proclaim to all in this place that I am teaching Arthur Stuart, and not just a few nights a week, but daily. I am free to tutor such pupils as I desire—my contract is quite specific on that point—and as long as I do not violate the contract, they must endure me for at least a year. Will that do?”
Old Peg looked at the woman in pure admiration. “I’ll be jiggered,” she said, “you’re mean as a cat with a burr in its behind.”
“I regret that I’ve never seen a cat in such an unfortunate situation, Goody Guester, so that I cannot estimate the accuracy of your simile.”
Old Peg couldn’t make no sense of the words Miss Larner said, but she caught something like a twinkle in the lady’s eye, so it was all right.
“When should I send Arthur to you?” she asked.
“As I said when I first opened the door, I’ll need a week to prepare. When school opens for the White children, it opens for Arthur Stuart as well. There remains only the question of payment.”
Old Peg was taken aback for a moment. She’d come here prepared to offer money, but after the way Miss Larner talked, she thought there’d be no cost after all. Still, teaching was Miss Larner’s livelihood, so it was only fair. “We thought to offer you a dollar a month, that being most convenient for us, Miss Larner, but if you need more—”
“Oh, not cash, Goody Guester. I merely thought to ask if you might indulge me by allowing me to hold a weekly reading of poetry in your roadhouse on Sunday evenings, inviting all in Hatrack River who aspire to improve their acquaintance with the best literature in the English language.”
“I don’t know as how there’s all that many who hanker after poetry, Miss Larner, but you’re welcome to have a go of it.”
“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the number of people
who wish to be thought educated, Goody Guester. We shall have difficulty finding seats for all the ladies of Hatrack River who compel their husbands to bring them to hear the immortal words of Pope and Dryden, Donne and Milton, Shakespeare and Gray and—oh, I shall be daring—Wordsworth and Coleridge, and perhaps even an American poet, a wandering spinner of strange tales named Blake.”
“You don’t mean old Taleswapper, do you?”
“I believe that is his most common sobriquet.”
“You’ve got some of his poems wrote drown?”
“Written? Hardly necessary, for that dear friend of mine. I have committed many of his verses to memory.”
“Well, don’t that old boy get around. Philadelphia, no less.”
“He has brightened many a parlor in that city, Goody Guester. Shall we hold our first soiree this Sunday?”
“What’s a swore raid?”
“Soiree. An evening gathering, perhaps with ginger punch—”
“Oh, you don’t have to teach me nothing about hospitality, Miss Larner. And if that’s the price for Arthur Stuart’s education, Miss Larner, I’m sore afraid I’m cheating you, because it seems to me you’re doing us the favor both ways.”
“You’re most kind, Goody Guester. But I must ask you one question.”
“Ask away. Can’t promise I’m too good at answers.”
“Goody Guester,” said Miss Larner. “Are you aware of the Fugitive Slave Treaty?”
Fear and anger stabbed right through Old Peg’s heart, even to hear it mentioned. “A devilish piece of work!”
“Slavery is a devilish work indeed, but the treaty was signed to bring Appalachee into the Compact, and to keep our fragile nation from war with the Crown Colonies. Peace is hardly to be labeled devilish.”
“It is when it’s a peace that says they can send their damned finders into the free states and bring back captive Black people to be slaves!”
“Perhaps you’re right, Goody Guester. Indeed, one could say
that the Fugitive Slave Treaty is not so much a treaty of peace as it is an article of surrender. Nevertheless, it is the law of the land.”
Only now did Old Peg realize what this teacher just done. What could it mean, her bringing up the Fugitive Slave Treaty, excepting to make sure Old Peg knew that Arthur Stuart wasn’t safe here, that finders could still come from the Crown Colonies and claim him as the property of some family of White so-called Christians? And that also meant that Miss Larner didn’t believe a speck of her story about where Arthur Stuart come from. And if she saw through the lie so easy-like, why was Old Peg fool enough to think everybody else believed it? Why, as far as Old Peg knew, the whole town of Hatrack River had long since guessed that Arthur Stuart was a slave boy what somehow run off and got hisself a White mama.
And if everybody knew, what was to stop somebody from giving report on Arthur Stuart, sending word to the Crown Colonies about a runaway slavechild living in a certain roadhouse near the Hatrack River? The Fugitive Slave Treaty made her adoption of Arthur Stuart plain illegal. They could take the boy right out of her arms and she’d never have the right to see him again. In fact, if she ever went south they could arrest her and hang her under the slave-poaching laws of King Arthur. And thinking of that monstrous King in his lair in Camelot made her remember the unkindest thing of all—that if they ever took Arthur Stuart south, they’d change his name. Why, it’d be high treason in the Crown Colonies, having a slavechild named with the same name as the King. So all of a sudden poor Arthur would find hisself with some other name he never heard of afore. She couldn’t help thinking of the boy all confused, somebody calling him and calling him, and whipping him for not coming, but how could he know to come, since nobody called him by his right name?
Her face must’ve painted a plain picture of all the thoughts going through her head, because Miss Larner walked behind her and put her hands on Old Peg’s shoulders.
“You’ve nought to fear from me, Goody Guester. I come from Philadelphia, where people speak openly of defying that treaty. A young New Englander named Thoreau has made quite a nuisance
of himself, preaching that a bad law must be defied, that good citizens must be prepared to go to jail themselves rather than submit to it. It would do your heart good to hear him speak.”
Old Peg doubted that. It only froze her to the heart to think of the treaty at all. Go to jail? What good would that do, if Arthur was being whipped south in chains? No matter what, it was none of Miss Larner’s business. “I don’t know why you’re saying all this, Miss Larner. Arthur Stuart is the freeborn son of a free Black woman, even if she got him on the wrong side of the sheets. The Fugitive Slave Treaty means nothing to me.”
“Then I shall think no more of it, Goody Guester. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’m somewhat weary from traveling, and I had hoped to retire early. though it’s still light outside.”
Old Peg sprang to her feet, mighty relieved at not talking anymore about Arthur and the Treaty. “Why, of course. But you ain’t hopping into bed without taking a bath, are you? Nothing like a bath for a traveler.”
“I quite agree, Goody Guester. However, I fear my luggage was not copious enough for me to bring my tub along.”
“I’ll send Horace over with my spare tub the second I get back, and if you don’t mind hotting up your stove there, we can get water from Gertie’s well yonder and set it to steaming in no time.”
“Oh, Goody Guester, I fear you’ll convince me before the evening’s out that I’m in Philadelphia after all, It shall be almost disappointing, for I had steeled myself to endure the rigors of primitive life in the wilderness, and now I find that you are prepared to offer all the convivial blessings of civilization.”
“I’ll take it that what you said mostly means thank you, and so I say you’re welcome, and I’ll be back in no time with Horace and the tub. And don’t you dare fetch your own water, at least not today. You just set there and read or philosophate or whatever an educated person does instead of dozing off.”
With that Old Peg was out of the springhouse. She like to flew along the path to the inn. Why. this teacher lady wasn’t half so bad as she seemed at first. She might talk a language that Old Peg couldn’t hardly understand half the time. but at least she was willing to talk to
folks—and she’d teach Arthur at no cost and hold poetry readings in the roadhouse to boot. Best of all, though, best of all she might even be willing to talk to Old Peg sometimes and maybe some of that smartness might rub off on her. Not that smartness was all that much good to a woman like Old Peg, but then, what good was a jewel on a rich lady’s finger, either? And if being around this educated eastern spinster gave Old Peg even a jigger more understanding of the great world outside Hatrack River, it was more than Old Peg had dared to hope for in her life. Like daubing just a spot of color on a drab moth’s wing. It don’t make the moth into a butterfly, but maybe now the moth won’t despair and fly into the fire.
 
Miss Larner watched Old Peg walk away. Mother, she whispered. No, didn’t even whisper. Didn’t even open her mouth. But her lips pressed together a bit tighter with the
M,
and her tongue shaped the other sounds inside her mouth.
It hurt her, to deceive. She had promised never to lie, and in a sense she wasn’t lying even now. The name she had taken,
Larner,
meant nothing more than
teacher,
and since she
was
a teacher, it was as truly her name as Father’s name was Guester and Makepeace’s name was Smith. And when people asked her questions, she never lied to them, though she did refuse to answer questions that might tell them more than they ought to know, that might set them wondering.
BOOK: Prentice Alvin: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume III
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