waved off the idea with one hand. "Oh, now, that wouldn't be hard. I've known how to change one metal to another for a long time - it's easier with metals, the way the bits line up and all. Hard to change air, but easy to change metal."
"You're saying you could have turned iron to gold at any time?" asked Verily. "Why didn't you?"
"I reckon there's about the right amount of gold in the world, and the right amount of iron. A man doesn't need to make hammers and saws, axes and plowshares out of gold - he needs iron for that. Gold is for things that need a soft metal."
"But gold would have made you rich," said Verily,
Alvin shook his head. "Gold would have made me famous. Gold would have surrounded me with thieves. And it wouldn't have got me one step closer to learning how to be a proper Maker."
"You expect us to believe that you have no interest in gold?"
"No sir. I need money as much as the next fellow. At that time I was hoping to get married, and I hardly had a penny to my name, which isn't much in the way of prospects. But for most folks gold stands for their hard labor, and I don't see how I should have gold that didn't come from my hard labor, too. It wouldn't be fair, and if it's out of balance like that, then it ain't good Making, if you see my point."
"And yet you did transform the plow into gold, didn't you?"
"Only as a step along the way," said Alvin.
"Along the way to what?"
"Well, you know. To what the witnesses all said they seen. This plow ain't common gold. It moves. It acts. It's alive."
"And that's what you intended?"
"The fire of life. Not just the fire of the forge."
"How did you do it?"
"It's hard to explain to them as don't have the sight of a doodlebug to get inside things. I didn't create life inside it that was already there. The bits of gold wanted to hold the shape I'd given them, that plow shape, so they fought against the melting of the fire, but they didn't have the strength. They didn't know their own strength. And I couldn't teach them, either. And then all of a sudden I thought to put my own hands into the fire and show the gold how to be alive, the way I was alive."
"Put your hands into the fire?" asked Verily.
Alvin nodded. "It hurt something fierce, I'll tell you."
"But you're unscarred," said Verily.
"It was hot, but don't you see, it was a Maker's fire, and finally I understood what I must have known all along, that a Maker is part of what he Makes. I had to be in the fire along with the gold, to show it how to live, to help it find its own heartfire. If I knew exactly how it works I could do a better job of teaching folks. Heaven knows I've tried but ain't nobody learned it aright yet, though a couple or so is getting there, step by step. Anyway, the plow came to life in the fire."
"So now the plow was as we have seen it - or rather, as we have heard it described here."
"Yes," said Alvin. "Living gold."
"And in your opinion, whom does that gold belong to?"
Alvin looked around at Makepeace, then at Marty Laws, then at the judge. "It belongs to itself. It ain't no slave."
Marty Laws rose to his feet. "Surely the witness isn't asserting the equal citizenship of golden plows."
"No. sir," said Alvin. "I am not. It has its own purpose in being, but I don't think jury duty or voting for president has much to do with it."
"But you're saying it doesn't belong to Makepeace Smith and it doesn't belong to you either," said Verily.
"Neither one of us."
"Then why are you so reluctant to yield possession of it to your former master?" asked Verily.
"Because he means to melt it down. He said as much that very next morning. Of course, when I told him he couldn't do that, he called me thief and insisted that the plow belonged to him. He said a ourneyman piece belongs to the master unless he gives it to the journeyman and, I think he said, 'I sure as hell don't!' Then he called me thief."
"And wasn't he right? Weren't you a thief?"
"No sir," said Alvin. "I admit that the iron he gave me was