The Crystal City Page 0,10

like everybody else, but it's not enough, even without washing the children more than once a week. So for poor folks, the water wagon fills up the public fountain twice a week. Today's a water day."

"You show me what to tote it in, and I'll come back full as many times as you want," said Alvin.

"I'll go along with him to whisper encouragement," said Arthur Stuart.

"Arthur Stuart is so noble of heart," said Alvin, "that he drinks his fill, then comes back here and pisses it out pure."

"You two bring lying to the level of music."

"You should hear my concerto for two liars and a whipped dog," said Alvin.

"But we don't actually whip no dog," Arthur Stuart assured her quickly. "We trained an irritable cat to do the dog's part."

Mama Squirrel laughed out loud and shook her head. "I swear I don't know why Margaret Larner would marry such a one as you."

"It was an act of faith," said Alvin.

"But Margaret Larner is such a torch, she needs no faith to judge a man's heart."

"It's his head she had to take on faith," said Arthur Stuart.

"Let's go get some water," said Alvin.

"Not unless I get me to a privy house first," said Arthur Stuart.

"Oh, fie on me," said Mama Squirrel. "I'm not much of hospitaler, specially in front of an innkeeper's son and son-in-law." She bustled over to the stairs and led Arthur Stuart down.

Alone in the garret, Alvin looked about for a place to store his poke while he lived in this place. There wasn't much in the way of hiding places there. The floorboards didn't fit tight together, so there was a chance someone might catch a glimpse of something if he hid the golden plow in the floor.

So he had no choice but to go to the chimney and pull out a few loose bricks. Not that they were loose to start with. He sort of helped them to achieve looseness until he had a gap big enough to push the plow through.

He pulled the plow from the sack. In his hand it was warm, and he felt a faint kind of motion inside it, as if some thin golden fluid swirled within.

"I wonder what you're good for," Alvin whispered to the plow. "I been carrying you asleep in my poke for lo these many years, and I still ain't found a use for you."

The plow didn't answer. It might be alive, in some fashion, but that didn't give it the power to speak.

Alvin pushed it through the opening into the sooty coolness of the chimney. There being no convenient shelf to set it on, and Alvin not being disposed to let it drop three-and-a-half stories to the hearth on the main floor, he had no choice but to wedge it into a corner. He had to let his doodlebug into the bricks to soften them up like cork while he pushed the plow in, then harden them up around the plow to hold it firmly in place. Then he closed the hole and bound bricks to mortar once again. There was no sign that this corner of the chimney had been changed in any way. It was as good a hiding place as he was likely to find. Depending on who was doing the looking.

Now his poke contained nothing but a change of clothes and his writing materials. He could leave it lying on his bed without a second thought.

Downstairs, he found Arthur Stuart just washing up after using the privy. Two three-year-old girls were watching him like they'd never seen handwashing before.

When he was done, instead of reaching for a towel-and there was a cloth not one step away, hanging from a hook- Arthur Stuart just held his hands over the basin. Alvin watched as the water evaporated so rapidly that Arthur Stuart suddenly screeched and rubbed his hands on his pants. To warm them up.

"Sometimes," said Alvin, "even a maker lets things happen naturally."

Arthur Stuart turned around, embarrassed. "I didn't know it would get so cold."

"You can get frostbite doing it so fast," said Alvin.

'Wow you tell me."

"How was I supposed to know you were too lazy to reach for a towel?"

Arthur Stuart sniffed. "I got to practice, you know."

"In front of witnesses, no less." He looked at the two girls.

"They don't know what I done," said Arthur Stuart.

"Which makes it all the more pathetic that you were showing off for them."

"Someday I'll get sick of you bossing and judging me all the time,"