'You didn't do nought but what I could have done myself with an oilcan.'

'But the fact is I did it, and you didn't, and that was worth our keep. The boy's worked, too, sweeping and fixing and cleaning and hefting.'

'I want six days' labour out of your boy. Harvest is upon us, and I need an extra pair of hands and a sturdy back. I've seen he's a good worker and he'll do.'

'Then take three days' service from me and the boy. I won't give away any more geese.'

'I don't have any more geese to give, except the layers. Anyway I don't want no miller's son, I just want the boy's labour.'

'Then we'll pay you in silver money.'

'What good is silver money here? Ain't nothing to spend it on. Nearest city of any size is Carthage, across the Hio, and hardly anybody goes there.'

'I don't use Arthur Stuart to discharge my debts. He's not my -'

Well, long before those words got to Alvin's lips, Arthur Stuart knew what he was about to do - he was going to declare that Arthur wasn't his slave. And that would be about as foolish a thing as Alvin could do. So Arthur Stuart spoke right up before the words could get away. 'I'm happy to work off the debt,' he says. 'Except I don't think it's possible. In six days I'll eat eighteen more meals and then I'll owe another three days, and in those three days I'll eat nine meals and I'll owe a day and a half, and at that rate I reckon I'll never pay off that debt.'

'Ah yes,' says Alvin. 'Zeno's paradox.'

'And you told me there was never any practical use for that "bit of philosophical balderdash", as I recall you saying,' says Arthur Stuart. It was an argument from the days they both studied with Miss Larner, before she became Mrs Alvin Smith.

'What the Sam Hill you boys talking about?' asked Rack Miller.

Alvin tried to explain. 'Each day that Arthur Stuart works for you, he'll build up half again the debt that he pays off by his labour. So he only covers half the distance towards freedom. Half and half and half again, only he never quite gets to the goal.'