Farming was a distraction that became Bonaventure’s profession.
“On a farm,” Grosvenor said to the younger Lyman, “animals are frequently butchered. The parts that are unwanted or aren’t useful, which are few, end in a refuse pile, and the parts that are useful eventually end up there too, or at least the bones do. Keep in mind that successive generations at the farm also have successive heaps; and further, that waste does not always stay where it was last placed—vermin will often drag it hither and yon. I once knew of an elm inhabited by a family of raccoons and the base of it could have been mistaken for a burying ground turned upside down, if drumsticks and soup bones were interred by their widows. Of course, every farm has its dogs and barn cats as well as mice and other rodents, all of whom add their own remains to the soil in good time. And let us not forget horses! The noble steed, the faithful workman, who at last is usually buried where he falls, or at least dragged with effort a not very far distance. Same for oxen.”
He thrust a shovel into the earth closest to the hand-laid stones.
“The result, Mr. Lyman, is that to stand within a farm’s fence posts is to stand inside a cemetery. Bones, bones, everywhere underfoot, and it takes only a plow’s edge or a spade or even a hard rain to unveil to daylight that which was secret. While digging the trench for this foundation,” Grosvenor tossed aside a shovel load of dirt, “a few of the other community members and I uncovered some most unusual bones.”
He thrust the shovel at Lyman.
“What I would like for you to do is to join the search. In your free time, of course.”
Lyman frowned. “You want me to dig a hole?”
“Not dig a hole, no. That would be tedious. I wish for you to find more of the bones like those we’ve already discovered. Consider it an apprenticeship of sorts.”
“I still don’t understand the point of the exercise.”
“The point is to join me in my study of natural science. To improve Bonaventure, to demonstrate to the outside world that our community is both self-sustaining and a center for science and inquiry. The point, Mr. Lyman, is that the bones we found are just that—bones, and not fossils.”
“You’re suggesting it’s a surprise they should be one and not the other.”
Grosvenor said, “’There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’” And then he chortled at his own literacy.
•••
After long cogitation and for lack of any better strategy, Lyman finally decided to peel back an undamaged section of the stone house’s roof. This, he theorized, would provide him with a blueprint useful for repairing the hole over the kitchen; but upon doing so a new problem identified itself. He surmised that a supporting beam, having been broken in the original catastrophe and rotted away, was missing from the damaged area; and in his zeal to clear the space of old wood, Lyman had ripped out any remnant or trace of it, leaving the roof unsupported. It was in poorer shape than when he’d found it.
Lyman lived every waking moment under the weight of a sword dangling overhead, waiting for the hour in which his charades were revealed. Asking Grosvenor or anyone else was to risk questions and ultimate discovery. Whatever the solution to the absent beam, it would have to be his alone. None of the planks supplied to him was thick enough for the replacement. Fine, he thought; he could sister three of them together to make a beam of suitable girth, but he had no worthy fasteners. He looked to his shaky ladder for inspiration. He cut and shaved some straight lengths of sapling into pins, drilled holes through the trio of planks, and doweled them together. But the resulting beam was too heavy for him to lift into place by himself. He would have to hold his breath and request help.
The response at the supper table was contrary to his fear. All marveled at the thrift and ingenuity in constructing the makeshift beam, and Grosvenor repeated his claim that Bonaventure was better for Lyman’s arrival. Lyman, glancing across the table at an approving Minerva, saw something in her eyes that made his stomach jump. There was no shortage of volunteers for the task, though Lyman suggested only two men were necessary, and so the following morning after breakfast, a pair returned with him to the stone house.
Their names were Presley and Sutton and they bunked together in one of the cabins close to the Consulate. Lyman found they were in no rush to work; after a cursory tour of the house—which excluded any exploration of the basement—Sutton suggested a pot of tea would strike the right mood for labor, and for a long time the three sat outside on a log with their backs to the stone wall of the house, drinking and gossiping while the first yellow leaves rained down in the cool
