Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV by Orson Scott Card Read Free Book Online Page B

judge.”
    “What is it that I’m supposed to judge?”
    Becca passed the shuttlecock from her right hand to her left. The loom slammed forward, then dropped back. She passed the shuttlecock from her left hand to her right. Again, the frame slammed forward, weaving the threads tight.
    This
is
a dream, thought Peggy. And not a very pleasant one. Why can’t I ever wake up to escape from some foolish useless dream?
    “Personally,” said Becca, “I think you’ve already made your judgment. It’s only my sister thinks that you deserve a secondchance. She’s very romantic. She thinks that you deserve some happiness. My own feeling is that human happiness is a very random thing, and bestows itself willy-nilly, and there’s not much deserving about the matter.”
    “So it’s myself that I’m supposed to judge?”
    Becca laughed.
    One of the girls stuck her head into the room. “Mother says it’s nasty and uncompassionate when you laugh during the weaving,” she said.
    “Nanner nanner,” said Becca.
    The girl laughed lightly, and Becca did too.
    “Mother mixed up something really vile for your supper.
With
dumplings.”
    “Vileness with dumplings,” said Becca. “Do sup with me.”
    “Let the
judge
do that,” said the girl. “She really
is
a bossy one. Telling
us
about right and wrong.” With that the girl disappeared.
    Becca clucked for a moment. “The children are so full of themselves. Still very impressed with the idea that they aren’t part of the normal world. You must forgive them for being arrogant and cruel. They couldn’t have hurt their brother much, because they haven’t the strength to strike a blow that will really harm him.”
    “He bled,” said Peggy. “He limped.”
    “But the squirrel died,” said Becca.
    “You keep no threads for squirrels.”
    “
I
keep no threads for them. But that doesn’t mean their threads aren’t woven.”
    “Oh, tell me flat out. Don’t waste my time with mysteries.”
    “I haven’t been,” said Becca. “No mysteries. I’ve told you everything that’s useful. Anything else I told you might affect your judgment, and so I won’t do it. I let my sister have her way, bringing you here, but I’m certainly
not
going to bend your life any more than that. You can leave whenever you want—that’s a choice, and a judgment, and I’ll be content with it.”
    “Will
I
?
    “Come back in thirty years and tell me.”
    “Will I be—”
    “If you’re still alive then.” Becca grinned. “Do you think I’m so clumsy as to let slip your real span of years? I don’t even know it. I haven’t cared enough to look.”
    Two girls came in with a plate and a bowl and a cup on a tray. They set it on a small table near the loom. The plate was covered with a strange-smelling food. Peggy recognized nothing about it. Nor was there anything that she might have called a dumpling.
    “I don’t like it when people watch me eat,” said Becca.
    But Peggy was feeling very angry now, with all the elusiveness of Becca’s conversation, and so she did not leave as courtesy demanded.
    “Stay, then,” said Becca.
    The girls began to feed her. Becca did nothing to seek out the food. She kept up the perfect rhythm of her weaving, just as she had done throughout their conversation. The girls deftly maneuvered spoon or fork or cup to find their Aunt Becca’s mouth, and then with a quick slurp or bite or sip she had the food. Not a drop or crumb was spilled on the cloth.
    It could not always be like this, thought Peggy. She married Ta-Kumsaw. She bore a daughter to him, the daughter that went west to weave a loom among the Reds beyond the Mizzipy. Surely those things were not done with the shuttlecock flying back and forth, the loom slamming down to tamp the threads. It was deception. Or else it involved things Peggy was not going to understand however she tried.
    She turned and left the room. The hall ended in a narrow stair. Sitting on the top step was, she assumed, the