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critical edge was regained—the sharpness that would make their work go a little easier in the second half of the day.
    They could feel the softening, the sudden slipperiness, as the last of the resistance was worn away and the edge was gained. They could hear it, too—anyone could notice it—and when this happened, the saw sharpeners would straighten up from their work as if rising from a trance. They would give the blade just a few more light touches, as if to be sure that the edge was real, and then they would brush and blow the steel filings from the blade and knock the magnetized crumbs of iron from their files, and press a thumb or finger lightly to the sawblade to confirm with touch that which their ears, as well as the sudden slackness and ease in the muscles of their arms and backs and shoulders, had already told them.
    That was pretty much the spot where sharpeners at other mills stopped and put the blade back onto the planer and the men would start the engines back up. And for the next few hours, the newly sharpened blades would address the green wood with greater ease. It was good enough for most, and because most of the lumber being milled was rough-cut anyway, the extra edge did not much matter.
    Floyd, however, had a special way of sharpening his blades. He insisted that each blade be fully tempered, or retempered, in the middle of each day. It was important, he said, that the blade be able to fully control the wood. It saved money, too. The edge of a tempered saw not only held longer but cut sharper, resulting in less engine wear, as well as a higher quality of lumber.
    The secret to his lumber's quality lay in his children's ability to discern pitch. At the end of almost every lunch break, the Brown children would be summoned to the saw-sharpening table, where the newly honed blade would be placed on an axle with a motor and then spun rapidly, as if being made ready for a cut.
    There was a certain sound, a ringing, that a fully tempered saw made when it had achieved that absolute perfect edge. It was a sound that the men could sometimes hear, but other times, for whatever reasons, was indiscernible to them. The sound they listened for—the perfect blade—held an eerie resonance, the faint sirenlike echo of a high harmonic that was little different from the tempered harmony the Browns were already learning to achieve with their voices.
    Their individual voices were becoming ever more exceptional. Something inexplicable was happening to them. Anyone could see it, could hear it, and with them still just children. People talked about them when they sang in church choirs, or at weekly social gatherings on the weekends, and relatives' birthday parties. The Browns listened to the Grand Ole Opry on their family's radio, as did everyone they knew. If a family did not own a radio, that family would travel on Friday and Saturday nights to the home of a neighbor who did.
    All throughout the dark woods at night, the scattered and farflung impoverished hamlets would be stitched together in one fabric, the community of sound, as they sat and listened to the weekly radio shows.
    Even as young children, the Browns could imitate with perfect pitch any of the performers they heard on the radio. They were eager to please; the oldest, Maxine, was particularly desperate to please. Floyd was hardest on her, the one most like himself. He tried to manage her like his mill, or any of the other things in his life he could not control. In his mind, anything she did could always be better. Day after day, he transferred his dissatisfactions with himself onto her.
    The men would strive to hear what the children were hearing. They would watch the children to see if it could be discerned at what point the children heard what it was they were listening for.
    There was no mistaking when the Browns heard it, even if the men, with their hearing battered by the years of saw-roar, could not. The children, though they would