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boat. I won't help pay for no slave ship."
    "He won't even notice the price of our passage."
    "Oh, he'll notice, all right," said Alvin. "This Captain Howard is a fellow what can tell how much money you got in your pocket by the smell of it."
    "
You
can't even do that," said Arthur Stuart.
    "Money's his knack," said Alvin. "That's my guess. He's got him a pilot to steer the ship, and an engineer to keep that steam engine going, and a carpenter to tend the paddlewheel and such damage as the boat takes passing close to the left bank all the way down the Mizzippy. So why is he captain? It's about the money. He knows who's got it, and he knows how to talk it out of them."
    "So how much money's he going to think
you
got?"
    "Enough money to own a big young slave, but not enough money to afford one what doesn't have such a mouth on him."
    Arthur Stuart glared. "You don't own me."
    "I told you, Arthur Stuart, I didn't want you on this trip and I still don't. I hate taking you south because I have to pretend you're my property, and I don't know which is worse, you pretending to be a slave, or me pretending to be the kind of man as would own one."
    "I'm going and that's that."
    "So you keep on saying," said Alvin.
    "And you must not mind because you could force me to stay here iffen you wanted."
    "Don't say 'iffen,' it drives Peggy crazy when you do."
    "She ain't here and you say it your own self."
    "The idea is for the younger generation to be an improvement over the older."
    "Well, then, you're a mizzable failure, you got to admit, since I been studying makering with you for lo these many years and I can barely make a candle flicker or a stone crack."
    "I think you're doing fine, and you're better than that, anyway, if you just put your mind to it."
    "I put my mind to it till my head feels like a cannonball."
    "I suppose I should have said, Put your heart in it. It's not about
making
the candle or the stone -- or the iron chains, for that matter -- it's not about
making
them do what you want, it's about
getting
them to do what you want."
    "I don't see you setting down and
talking
no iron into bending or dead wood into sprouting twigs, but they do it."
    "You may not see me or hear me do it, but I'm doing it all the same, only they don't understand words, they understand the plan in my heart."
    "Sounds like making wishes to me."
    "Only because you haven't learned yourself how to do it yet."
    "Which means you ain't much of a teacher."
    "Neither is Peggy, what with you still saying 'ain't'."
    "Difference is, I know how
not
to say 'ain't' when she's around to hear it," said Arthur Stuart, "only I can't poke out a dent in a tin cup whether you're there or not."
    "Could if you cared enough," said Alvin.
    "I want to ride on this boat."
    "Even if it's a slave ship?" said Alvin.
    "Us staying off ain't going to make it any less a slave ship," said Arthur Stuart.
    "Ain't you the idealist."
    "You ride this
Yazoo Queen
, Master of mine, and you can keep those slaves comfy all the way back to hell."
    The mockery in his tone was annoying, but not misplaced, Alvin decided.
    "I could do that," said Alvin. "Small blessings can feel big enough, when they're all you got."
    "So buy the ticket, cause this boat's supposed to sail first thing in the morning, and we want to be aboard already, don't we?"
    Alvin didn't like the mixture of casualness and eagerness in Arthur Stuart's words. "You don't happen to have some plan to set these poor souls free during the voyage, do you? Because you know they'd jump overboard and there ain't a one of them knows how to swim, you can bet on that, so it'd be plain murder to free them."
    "I got no such plan."
    "I need your promise you won't free them."
    "I won't life a finger to help them," said Arthur Stuart. "I can make my heart as hard as yours whenever I want."
    "I hope you don't think that kind of talk makes me glad to have your company," said Alvin. "Specially because I think you know I don't deserve it."
    "You telling