“Why should they?” asked Mother. “He's been gone most of the past seven years. When he left he was a scrub-size boy who'd just spent a year running around the countryside with a Red warrior. When he come back he was full of power and majesty and scared the pellets out of all the bunny-hearts around here. What do they know of his character?”
“Would somebody please tell me what this is about?” Alvin said.
“You mean they haven't?” asked Father. “They were powerful quick to tell your mother and Measure and Armor-of-God.”
Taleswapper chuckled. “Of course they didn't tell Alvin. Those who believe the tale assume he already knows. And those who don't believe it are plain ashamed that anyone could say such silly slander.”
Measure sighed. “Amy Sump told her friend Ramona, and Ramona told her mama, and her mama went straight to Goody Sump, and she went straight to her husband, and he like to went crazy because he can't conceive that every male creature larger than a mouse isn't hottin' up after his nubian daughter.”
“Nubile,” Alvin corrected him.
“Yeah yeah,” said Measure. “I know, you're the one who reads the books, and now's sure the time to correct my grammar.”
“Nubians are Black Africans,” said Alvin. “And Amy ain't no Black near as I can figure.”
“This might be a good time to shut up and listen,” said Measure.
“Yes sir,” said Alvin.
“If only you had left when that torch girl sent you that warning,” said Mother. “It's a plain fool who stays inside a burning house because he wants to see the color of the flames.”
“What's Amy saying about me?” asked Alvin.
“Pure nonsense,” said Father. “About you running off in the Red way, a hundred miles in a night through the woods, taking her to a secret lake where you swum nekkid and other such indecencies.”
“With Amy?” asked Alvin, incredulous.
“Meaning that you'd do it with someone else?” asked Measure.
“I'd do such a thing with nobody,” said Alvin. “Ain't decent, and besides, there ain't enough unbroken living forest these days to get a hundred miles in a night. I can't make half so good a speed through fields and farms. The greensong gets noisy and busted up and I get too tired trying to hear it and why is anybody believing such silliness?”
“Because they think you can do anything,” said Measure.
“And because a good number of these men have noticed Amy filling out of late,” said Armor-of-God, “and they know that if they had the power, and if Amy was as moony toward them as she plainly is toward you, they'd have her naked in a lake in two seconds flat.”
“You're too cynical about human nature,” said Taleswapper. “Most of these fellows are the wishing kind. But they know Alvin is a doer, not just a wisher.”
“I hardly noticed her except to think she was sure slow to learn, considering how tight she seemed to pay attention,” said Alvin.
“To you she was paying attention. Not to what you said or taught,” said Measure.
“Well it ain't so. I didn't do anything to her or with her, and…”
“And even if you did it would be plain disaster if you married her,” said Mother.
“Married her!” cried Alvin.
“Well of course, if it was true, you'd have to marry her,” said Father.
“But it ain't true.”
“You got any witnesses of that?” asked Measure.
“Witnesses of what? How can I have witnesses that it didn't happen? Everybody's my witness– everybody didn't see any such thing.”
“But she says it happened,” said Measure. “And you're the only other one who knows whether she's lying or not. So either she's a plain liar and you're innocently accused, or she's a brokenhearted lied-to seduced girl and you're the cad who got the use of her and now won't do the decent thing, and nobody can prove either way.”
“So you don't even believe me?”
“Of course we believe you,” said Father. “Do you think we're insane? But our believing you ain't any kind of evidence. Measure's been reading law, and he explained it to us.”
“Law?” asked Alvin.
“Well, afore you come home from Hatrack River, anyway. And, now and then since. I reckon somebody in the family ought to know something about the law.”
“But you mean you think this might come to court?”
“Might,” said Measure. “That's what the Sumps were saying. Get them a lawyer from Carthage City instead of one of the frontier lawyers as has a shingle out here in Vigor Church. Lots of publicity.”
“But they can't convict me of anything!”
“Breach of promise. Indecent liberties with a child. All depends on how many jurors think that where there's smoke, there's fire.”
“Indecent liberties with a…”
“That one's a hanging offense, all right,” said Measure. “But I hear that's the charge that Clevy wants to bring.”
“Doesn't matter if they convict you or not,” said Taleswapper.
“Matters to me,” said Mother.
“Either way, the tale will spread. Alvin the so-called Maker, taking advantage of young girls. You can't let this go to trial,” said Taleswapper.
Alvin saw at once how such rumors, such publicity as a trial would bring, it would bring down his work, make it impossible to attract others to come and learn Making at Vigor Church.
Not that he was doing much good teaching Making anyway.
“Miss Larner,” murmured Alvin.
“Yep,” said Taleswapper. “She warned you. Leave now freely, or leave later because you have to.”
“Why should he he driven from his own home just because a horny lying little…” Mother's voice trailed off.
Alvin sat in the ensuing silence, recognizing his foolishness. “I spose I'm a plain fool for not heeding Miss Larner.” And then, stiffening his back, he closed his eyes, and said, “There's another way. So I don't have to leave at all.”
“What's that?” asked Measure.
“I could marry her.”
“No!” cried Mother and Father at once.
“Why not just sign a confession?” asked Armor-of-God.
“You can't marry her,” said Measure.
“It's what she wants,” said Alvin. “You can bet she'd say yes, and her father and mother would have to agree to it.”
“Agree to it– and then despise you ever after,” said Father.
“Doesn't matter about his reputation or what people think of him or anything, compared to this,” said Measure. “Waking up every morning and seeing Amy Sump in bed next to you, and knowing the only reason she's there is because she slandered you– tell me what kind of home you'll make, the two of you, for your babies?”
Alvin thought about that for a moment and nodded. “I guess marriage ain't much of a solution. More like starting a whole new set of problems.”
“Ah, good,” said Father. “I was afraid we'd raised us a fool.”
“So I sneak off like a thief, and everybody reckons Amy was telling the truth and I ran off.”
“Not likely,” said Measure. “We'll let it be known that you left because your work is too important to be distracted by this nonsense. You'll be back when Amy starts telling the truth, and in the meantime, you'll be studying up on… whatever. Learning something.”
“Learning how to build the Crystal City,” murmured Taleswapper.
They all looked at him.
“You don't know how, do you, Alvin?” asked Taleswapper. “While you're busy trying to make Makers out of these people, you don't even know yourself what the Crystal City really is, or how to make it.”
Alvin nodded. “That's right.”
“So… it isn't even a lie,” said Taleswapper. “You do have much to learn, and you're overdue to learn it. Why, you're even grateful to Amy for showing you that you've been hanging around here far too long. Measure's been learning right good. He's far enough ahead of the others that he can go on teaching in your absence. And him being a married man, no schoolgirl's going to get some foolish notion about him.”