"The Tinker" is a 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...

. It appears in his short story collection The Worthing Saga

The Worthing Saga

The Worthing Saga is a science fiction book by American writer Orson Scott Card, set in the Worthing series. It is made up of the novel The Worthing Chronicle and nine related stories...

. Card first published it in the Vol. 1, No. 2 (1980) issue of Eternity SF

Eternity SF

Eternity SF, also known as Eternity Science Fiction and Eternity, was a semi-professional science fiction magazine published by Stephen Gregg out of Sandy Springs, South Carolina. The magazine was issued from 1972–1975 and was briefly revived from 1979-1980. It contained stories from famous...

magazine.

Plot summary

John Tinker spent every winter at his cousin’s inn in the town of Worthing. While in town John healed the town’s people with a special gift he inherited

Inheritance

Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...

 from Jason Worthing. On a particularly bad winter when the snow was very deep John did his best to help the sick people of Worthing but some of them died anyway. The town’s people blamed John for the deaths and killed some of the birds that he has also been taking care of. When John found he was unable to help his nephew, people thought he was refusing to help because of the dead birds and ran him out of town. After he left a very bad snowstorm

Winter storm

A winter storm is an event in which the dominant varieties of precipitation are formed that only occur at low temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground temperatures are low enough to allow ice to form...

 hit Worthing and more than half the people in town died. When the storm finally ended John returned to Worthing and was beaten to death by the remaining town’s people.

Connection to the Worthing Saga

This story takes place many years after the events in the story "Worthing Inn

Worthing Inn

"Worthing Inn" is a short story by Orson Scott Card. It only appears in his short story collection The Worthing Saga.-Plot summary:Little Peter lives in the Worthing Inn with his immediate family and his uncle Elijah. While he was still a little boy he discovered that he could hear the thoughts...

". The story of John Tinker also appears in a much shorter form as a part of chapter 7 in Card's novel The Worthing Chronicle

The Worthing Chronicle

The Worthing Chronicle is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card set in the Worthing series. This book by itself is out of print having been published along with nine short stories in the collection The Worthing Saga .-Plot summary:...

.

External links

• The official Orson Scott Card website