Free The Lightning Keeper by Starling Lawrence

completion—the spillways of the main dam were rammed home and the sluice gate to the canal cranked open. The water rushed down the topmost straightaway, and when the cheering of the crowd abated, each witness wondered privately what that ominous noise might be that so resembled the rattling of giant dice. It wasthe paving stones, plucked out of their bed of clay by the onrushing water, smashing against the walls and each other, raking and rending the clay beneath.
    At the bottom of the slope, where the new silk mill occupied the last site before the canal debouched into the riverbed, a smaller crowd, including the proud proprietor of that establishment, awaited the rush of water that would start the wheel turning. The mill was already stocked and fitted, the shafting, pulleys, and looms awaiting only the motive power of the Buttermilk to begin their business. Eben Cartwright, envisioning his future requirement of raw materials, had even purchased fifty acres of prime bottomland in the next township and set out ten thousand mulberry seedlings to feed his silkworms. The building, according to the diary of Cartwright’s nephew, who recorded the incident, was suffused with the subtle aroma of the brand-new leather belting that connected the driver and all subsidiary shafts, gears, and pulleys.
    The hoarse cheering, punctuated by a few firecrackers, rolled down from above, the signal that the sluice gate had been opened, and they waited. Seconds passed, seeming like minutes or hours, and eventually Cartwright consulted his watch: Surely it couldn’t take water this long to flow downhill? When the water arrived it came from an unexpected direction…not by the canal, but flowing straight down the slope through the underbrush, a muddy trickle at first, and eventually a torrent that scoured the hill of leaves, deadwood, and some impressive boulders, all of which fell into the canal, plugging it and overwhelming the new wheel in its flume. A short while afterward a little water made its way down the canal bed and came to rest in a spreading pool behind this landslide.
    The explanation for this debacle is already clear to the perspicacious reader, as it was clear enough to the onlookers once the sluice gate had been wrung down: those flat, heavy stones, though they might serve to keep a stone wall fixed and dressed for one hundred years in spite of the urgent thrust of the frost, had yielded in an instant to the rush of the Buttermilk, exposing the clay below, which was only a temporary defense, and in the blinking of an eye muddy water began to pour through every crevice in the rock wall on the downhill side of the canal.
    The ensuing silence comprised the shock, mortification, and embarrassment of the spectators and the principals, and there may have been those gray heads in the throng who had heard and paid heed to the minister’s words years ago: the history of failed enterprise had reasserted itself with a vengeance. At the top of the canal, Aaron Bigelow faced the situation, and the crowd, with a forthright, almost defiant air. The construction was defective, he proclaimed, but not the idea: purer clay and a more reliable subcontractor would be found, and the stones allowed to set in the clay until it was as firm as cement. And if that didn’t work, a concrete lining would be installed, in spite of the expense. At the bottom of the hill, Eben Cartwright was heard by his nephew to mutter: Someone will have to pay for this.
    The subsequent history of the canal was no more encouraging or profitable than this beginning, and far from being a source of revenue to the town, it must be seen as a rankling, debilitating thing, a succubus that fed on dreams, fortunes, even lives.
    The purer clay was tried and found wanting. There was brief hope that a reduced flow of water might stabilize the canal bed, but it soon became apparent that such a stream would never support the full complement of factories, and Bigelow was