Prentice Alvin

Description

LET ME START my history of Alvin’s prenticeship where things first began to go wrong. It was a long way south, a man that Alvin had never met nor never would meet in all his life. Yet he it was who started things moving down the path that would lead to Alvin doing what the law called murder—on the very day that his prenticeship ended and he rightly became a man. It was a place in Appalachee, in 1811, before Appalachee signed the Fugitive Slave Treaty and joined the United States. It was near the borders where Appalachee and the Crown Colonies meet, so there wasn’t a White man but aspired to own a passel of Black slaves to do his work for him. Slavery, that was a kind of alchemy for such White folk, or so they reckoned. They calculated a way of turning each bead of a Black man’s sweat into gold and each moan of despair from a Black woman’s throat into the sweet clear sound of a silver coin ringing on the money-changer’s table. There was buying and selling of souls in that place. Yet there was nary a one of them who understood the whole price they paid for owning other folk. Listen tight, and I’ll tell you how the world looked from inside Cavil Planter’s heart. But make sure the children are asleep, for this is a part of my tale that children ought not to hear, for it deals with hungers they don’t understand too well, and I don’t aim for this story to teach them. Contents Title Page Tor Books by Orson Scott Card Copyright Notice Dedication Maps Acknowledgments 1. The Overseer 2. Runaway 3. Lies 4. Modesty 5. Dowser 6. Masquerade 7. Wells 8. Unmaker 9. Redbird 10. Goodwife 11. Wand 12. School Board 13. Springhouse 14. River Rat 15. Teacher 16. Property 17. Spelling Bee 18. Manacles 19. The Plow 20. Cavil’s Deed 21. Alvin Journeyman Copyright