"Grinning Man" is a fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 short story by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...

 set in his The Tales of Alvin Maker

The Tales of Alvin Maker

The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of novels by Orson Scott Card that revolve around the experiences of a young man, Alvin Miller, who discovers he has incredible powers for creating and shaping things around him...

 series. It was published in the anthology Legends

Legends (book)

Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy is a collection of 11 novellas by a number of noteworthy fantasy authors, edited by Robert Silverberg. All the stories were original to the collection, and set in the authors' established fictional worlds...

.

Plot summary

Alvin and Arthur are traveling through Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 country and come across a man who is grinning at a bear. Further on, they find a town where a prosperous miller

Miller

A miller usually refers to a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a cereal crop to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents in other languages around the world...

takes Alvin and Arthur in to work, but Alvin soon discovers why the miller is so prosperous.

External links

• The official Orson Scott Card website