Prentice Alvin: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume III by Orson Scott Card Page B

of his arms.
    “Well, I can see you’re not a lazy boy. Lazy boys get soft, but you’re strong like a hardworking farmer. Can’t lie about that, I reckon. Still, you haven’t seen what real work is.”
    “I’m ready to learn.”
    “Oh, I’m sure of that. Many a boy would be glad to learn from me. Other work might come and go, but there’s always a need for a blacksmith. That’ll never change. Well, you’re strong enough in body, I reckon. Let’s see about your brain. Look at this anvil. This here’s the bick, on the point, you see. Say that.”
    “Bick.”
    “And then the throat here. And this is the table—it ain’t faced with blister steel, so when you ram a cold chisel into it the chisel don’t blunt. Then up a notch onto the steel face, where you work the hot metal. And this is the hardie hole, where I rest the butt of the fuller and the flatter and the swage. And this here’s the pricking hole, for when I punch holes in strap iron---the hot punch shoots right through into this space. You got all that?”
    “I think so, sir.”
    “Then name me the parts of the anvil.”
    Alvin named them as best he could. Couldn’t remember the job each one did, not all of them, anyways, but what he did was good enough, cause the blacksmith nodded and grinned. “Reckon you
ain’t a half-wit, anyhow, you’ll learn quick enough. And big for your age is good. I won’t have to keep you on a broom and the bellows for the first four years, the way I do with smaller boys. But your age, that’s a sticking point. A term of prentice work is seven year, but my written-up articles with your pa, they only say till you’re seventeen.”
    “I’m almost twelve now, sir.”
    “So what I’m saying is, I want to be able to hold you the full seven years, if need be. I don’t want you whining off just when I finally get you trained enough to be useful.”
    “Seven years, sir. The spring when I’m nigh on nineteen, then my time is up.”
    “Seven years is a long time, boy, and I mean to hold you to it. Most boys start when they’re nine or ten, or even seven years old, so they can make a living, start looking for a wife at sixteen or seventeen years old. I won’t have none of that. I expect you to live like a Christian, and no fooling with any of the girls in town, you understand me?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “All right then. My prentices sleep in the loft over the kitchen, and you eat at table with my wife and children and me, though I’ll thank you not to speak until spoken to inside the house—I won’t have my prentices thinking they have the same rights as my own children, cause you don’t.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “And as for now, I need to het up this strap again. So you start to work the bellows there.”
    Alvin walked to the bellows handle. It was T-shaped, for two-handed working. But Alvin twisted the end piece so it was at the same angle as the hammer handle when the smith lifted it into the air. Then he started to work the bellows with one arm.
    “What are you doing, boy!” shouted Alvin’s new master. “You won’t last ten minutes working the bellows with one arm.”
    “Then in ten minutes I’ll switch to my left arm,” said Alvin. “But I won’t get myself ready for the hammer if I bend over every time I work the bellows.”
    The smith looked at him angrily. Then he laughed. “You got a fresh mouth, boy, but you also got sense. Do it your way as long as you can, but see to it you don’t slack on wind—I need a hot fire, and that’s more important than you working up strength in your arms right now.”
    Alvin set to pumping. Soon he could feel the pain of this unaccustomed movement gnawing at his neck and chest and back. But he kept going, never breaking the rhythm of the bellows, forcing his body to endure. He could have made the muscles grow right now, teaching them the pattern with his hidden power. But that wasn’t what Alvin was here for, he was pretty sure of that. So he let the pain come as