Read Online Prentice Alvin: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume III by Orson Scott Card - Free Book Online

trouble, baby, you ain’t no trouble at all.” She cooed to the baby just like she cooed to his dead mama, and he didn’t wake up either.
    “I told you. I’ll raise him as my son,” said Mama.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I just never heard of no White woman doing such a thing,” said Mock.
    “What I say,” said Mama, “that’s what I do.”
    Mock thought on that a moment. Then he nodded. “I reckon so,” he said. “I reckon I never heard you break your word, not even to Black folks.” He grinned. “Most White folk allow as how lying to a buck ain’t the same as lying.”
    “We’ll do like you asked,” said Anga Berry. “I’ll tell anybody who ask me this is my boy, only we gave him to you cause we was too poor.”
    “But don’t you ever go forgetting that it’s a lie,” said Mock. “Don’t you ever go thinking that if it really was our own baby, we’d ever give him up. And don’t you ever go thinking that my wife here ever would let some White man put a baby in her, and her being married to me.”
    Mama studied Mock for a minute, taking his measure in the way she had. “Mock Berry, I hope you come and visit me any day you like while this boy is in my house, and I’ll show you how one White woman keeps her word.”
    Mock laughed. “I reckon you a regular Mancipationist.”
    Papa came in then, covered with sweat and dirt. He shook hands with the Berrys, and in a minute they told him the tale they all would tell. He made his promises too, to raise the boy like his own son. He even thought of what never entered Mama’s head—he said a few words to Peggy, to promise her that they wouldn’t give no preference to the boy, neither. Peggy nodded. She didn’t want to say much, cause anything she said would either be a lie or give her plans away; she knew she had no intention to be in this house for even a single day of this baby’s future here.
    “We go on home now, Mrs. Guester,” said Anga. She handed the baby to Mama. “If one of my children wake up with a boogly
dream I best be there or you hear them screams clear up here on the high road.”
    “Ain’t you going have no preacher say words at her grave?” said Mock.
    Papa hadn’t thought of it. “We do have a minister upstairs,” he said.
    But Peggy didn’t let him hold that thought for even a moment. “No,” she said, sharp as she could.
    Papa looked at her, and knew that she was talking as a torch. Wasn’t no arguing that point. He just nodded. “Not this time, Mock,” he said. “Wouldn’t be safe.”
    Mama fretted Anga Berry clear to the door. “Is there anything I ought to know?” said Mama. “Is there anything different about Black babies?”
    “Oh, powerful different,” said Anga. “But that baby, he half White I reckon, so you just take care of that White half, and I reckon the Black half take care of hisself.”
    “Cow’s milk from a pig bladder?” Mama insisted.
    “You know all them things,” said Anga. “I learnt everything I know from you, Mrs. Guester. All the women round here do. How come you asking me now? Don’t you know I need my sleep?”
    Once the Berrys were gone, Papa picked up the girl’s body and carried her outside. Not even a coffin, though they would overlay the corpse with stones to keep the dogs off. “Light as a feather,” he said when first he hoisted her. “Like the charred carcass of a burnt log.”
    Which was apt enough, Peggy had to admit. That’s what she was now. Just ashes. She’d burnt herself right up.
    Mama held the pickaninny boy while Peggy went up into the attic and fetched down the cradle. Nobody woke up this time, except that minister. He was wide awake behind his door, but he wasn’t coming out for any reason. Mama and Peggy made up that little bed in Mama’s and Papa’s room, and laid the baby in it. “Tell me if this poor orphan baby’s got him a name,” said Mama.
    “She never gave him one,” said Peggy. “In her tribe, a woman
never got her a name till