But where it all came unglued once and for all was the fair to mark the reopening of the local school (which Mabel Peanut, the earnest Episcopalian school marm, dubbed “A Celebration of Progress”). The owners of the flour mill, the pottery factory, and the new tool-and-die works had all chipped in to offer a cash prize in honor of Brazilla Rice, the first brickmaker in Zanesville, to be awarded to the youngster with the best scientific exhibit-with the exception of Lloyd.

Lloyd’s exclusion was phrased subtly but unmistakably, based on a condition of entry the family could not argue with: the number of days of school attendance in the past calendar year. No one was in doubt, however, about the real reason. If Lloyd was allowed to enter, there would be no contest. The other children would look ridiculous and the school itself would be revealed for the backwater log chink box of birds and mud pies that it was.

And there was another point at issue-one that no one involved, not even Lloyd, saw at the moment. Although progress was being celebrated, there was an inherent fear of it as well. Throughout all America this was true-but nowhere was that fear sharper than in a realm like Zanesville, which was neither an eastern bastion of culture and emerging convenience nor a frontier town anymore, on the edge of the wilderness. It was a crossroads town, torn between two worlds, resentful and anxious regarding them both.

The Sitturds were stung by the unfairness. The prize money seemed a small fortune to them, and any award for excellence, intelligence, and innovation had Lloyd’s name on it-and the whole town knew, despite Hephaestus’s efforts to keep the boy’s genius hidden.