Rye's Wind Rule
When leaves turn their pale sides out,
tie the wood and bring the baskets in.
When the bees stay low and still,
shut the hive and shut the bin.

When smoke leans hard across the lane,
do not hang the sheets to dry.
When gulls wheel close above the harbor,
take the bread indoors and try
to keep the door from banging.

Rye says the wind gives warning.
Mother says the wind gives weather.
Uncle Marr says both can be true,
though he cannot mend the latch.

Three red leaves on the kitchen step.
Four black clouds beyond the pier.
Five apples rolling by the wall.
Six knocks, and Rye is here.

We count the jars and count the loaves.
We count the blankets on the bed.
We count the torches down the lane
before the evening turns to dark.

At the harbor, a man said he saw lights
over the north water after dusk.
His wife said they were lamps on a ship.
The keeper said no ship was there.
Rye counted the lights and lost count at seven.
Mother called us in before the cold.

When leaves turn their pale sides out,
tie the wood and bring the baskets in.
When the bees stay low and still,
shut the hive and shut the bin.
%%
Rhyme: harvest of the broken wheel
A weather rhyme and a working rhyme, for the autumn. Said at the farms on the edge of Lowmarsh, where the water is slow and the mill wheel breaks about once a year. Wren says it twice, once for the wheel and once for the mind.

The reeds go brown and the frogs go quiet,
And the mill pond sits like glass.
The wheel is broken, the grain is waiting,
And the autumn days go past.
The first frost comes on the ninth of Leaffall,
The last of the wheat is in.
The mill wheel stops, and the stones stand still,
And the farmers sit and grin.

We pulled the cart through the mud to the mill,
It stuck in the lane at the bend.
We pushed from behind and we pulled from before,
And the mule said, "Do you intend

To make me do all of the work?"
And we said, "Yes, old friend."
The wheel is mended with an oak spoke,
And the grain comes in at the end.

Now, for the mind.
A mind that has many layers is like the mill.
If the flour is wrong, the miller asks: which wheel?
Is it the first, that takes the grain?
Is it the last, that makes the flour fine?
He cannot tell, so he asks them all.
He sends the question back, wheel by wheel,
And each one says, "I did this much."
And each one changes a little.
That is the trick. Not to ask the last wheel alone,
But to send the blame back, and let every wheel hear.

I have a letter from a tutor at Copperhold. She says Merle did it first.
She says the minds that learn this way can read numbers.
The numbers on the letters the relays carry, from tower to tower:
a number for a lamp, a number for a wait, a number for the end.
A mind in layers can read them, and say what they mean.
A mind of one layer could not.

I do not know why it works. Nobody wrote that down.
I know that a mill with a broken wheel does not need to be thrown away.
It needs a new spoke, and every wheel to know about it.
%%
The Long Winter Count
First count the apples in the loft.
Count each one, then count once more.
Set the sound ones in the basket.
Keep the bruised ones by the door.

Count the sticks beside the hearth.
Count the jars along the wall.
Count the wool socks in the box.
Count the blankets, large and small.

Rye makes a mark for every stack.
Mother checks the tally board.
Uncle Marr says we have enough
if the road stays open toward the shore.

The first snow came in Leaffall.
It covered the lane and the garden beds.
The second snow hid the waymark.
The third made a ridge against the door.
We took turns clearing the step.
Rye made a game of it:
one shovel, two shovels, three,
then hot bread for you and me.

The winter held on through Frost
and through Longnight, with the sea shut under ice.
No boats came to the harbor wall.
The fish market had no price to change.
We ate beetroot, potatoes, and bread.
Aunt Sella saved the apple peel
for a pot of sweet water.

At night we heard the wind lift the roof edge.
We put a bowl beneath the leak.
Rye counted the drops and fell asleep at eleven.
In the morning the bowl was full.

A traveler said the big ships had gone south.
A woman from the quay said they had gone out
past the dark water and would not return.
The harbor keeper said he had seen only fog.
Uncle Marr said that is enough talk for one meal.
Then he set another place by the stove,
in case a traveler came in cold.

Count the apples in the loft.
Count each one, then count once more.
Set the sound ones in the basket.
Keep the bruised ones by the door.

In Deepsnow the sun came out for an hour.
Rye ran to the lane and counted the clear stones.
There were three. The rest were buried.
We brought the wood in before the sky closed.
The spring will come, Mother says.
We keep the tally until it does.
%%
Skipping rhyme: Jory's wheel
Vale of Ambrook, grandmother, says the girls skip to this in autumn, when the apples are down.

Jory's wheel, Jory's wheel,
Turning round the pond,
Jory's wheel, Jory's wheel,
Now it will not turn.

One stick broke and two stick snapped,
Three stick fell in the water,
Four stick floated, five stick sank,
Six stick met the miller's daughter.

Jory's wheel, Jory's wheel,
Turning round again!
Count to ten and jump out quick,
Or the wheel will catch you, then.
%%
Even Numbers in the Cold
Hesk wrote this rhyme after a lesson at Copperhold.
The house stood above the Deep Works.
Snow covered the hill and filled the path.
Clank brought in coal, one basket at a time.
He kept the count on a board by the stove.
"Why does the mind need even numbers?" he asked.
"Because wild numbers lose their way," said Hesk.
Each layer in a mind adds what it has found.
If the numbers grow too large, later layers cannot learn well.
So each layer brings them back to an even size.
It does not make every number the same.
It keeps their sizes from running away.
Clank wrote the rule beside his coal count.
Small or great, bring the numbers back.
Let the next layer have room to learn.
Then they made a verse for the stair.
One step down, and one step more.
Bring the number back before the next door.
One thought added, one thought passed.
Keep the stream steady, and the mind may last.
Hesk said the last line was not a promise.
Clank kept it anyway.
%%
The wheel that broke: a rhyme
A long rhyme for the autumn, said by Vale at the fireside in Ambrook. Everyone joins in on the refrain.

There was a wheel at Jory's mill,
Round it went and round it went,
It ground the wheat at the top of the hill,
And all the folk were well content.

Refrain:
O, turn, wheel, turn, turn, turn!
The flour is white and the loaf is brown!
O, turn, wheel, turn, turn, turn!
Bread for the village and bread for the town!

But came a night of wind and rain,
The pond rose high, the stream ran fast,
The wheel went round and round again,
Till something cracked, and it was past.

Refrain:
(Refrain.)

The miller came with lamp and rope,
He looked it over, front and back,
He said, "There is no cause for hope,
The wheel is broke, and so's my back."

Refrain:
(Refrain.)

But then up spoke the oldest hand,
The woman who had ground the grain
Since she could barely walk or stand:
"I know a smith, he'll come again."

Refrain:
(Refrain.)

The smith came down from Vell by cart,
He brought an oak beam, fresh and square,
He worked all day, with hammer, heart,
And all the village watched him there.

Refrain:
(Refrain.)

The miller paid in emeralds green,
Seven for the work and three for tea,
The best wheel ever to be seen
Was turning by the apple tree.

Refrain:
O, turn, wheel, turn, turn, turn!
The flour is white and the loaf is brown!
O, turn, wheel, turn, turn, turn!
Bread for the village and bread for the town!

Vale says to sing the refrain after every verse, loud, and to stamp on the last line.
%%
Counting rhyme: the melon too big
One melon, two melons, three on the vine,
Four melons, five melons, the sixth one is mine.
Seven melons, eight melons, nine, and then ten,
The tenth is too big, so we start again.

(A rhyme for the children of the Saltreach yards, who count the melons off the cart. The melon that was too big went to the pig, and the pig was delighted.)
%%
Weather lore for autumn
Sayings from Ambrook, rhymed by Vale and her mother and her mother's mother. Autumn.

Red sky at night, the apples are ripe.
Red sky at dawn, bring the washing in.

If the bees go home before noon,
Rain will come by afternoon.

When the geese fly low and the wind turns south,
Keep your torch close and your cloak about.

If the first frost falls on the harvest moon,
The winter will be long and soon.

A ring round the moon means rain in three days.
A ring round the sun means a storm that stays.

When the mill pond is still and the sluice runs slow,
There is cold on the way and an early snow.

If acorns are many and the oak leaves stay,
Look for a winter that will not go away.

If the spiders spin in the barn at night,
Leave a torch burning, and keep it bright.

A fox with a thick coat, a squirrel with a store,
Autumn is warning you, so go and get more.

When the wind is in the north and the smoke goes down,
Stay home with a pie and a thick brown gown.

Vale says all of these are true half the time, which is better than the almanac.
%%
Skipping at the Fish Weir
Written by Tilly

Skip to the weir, then skip to the stall.
Count every post by the old boardwalk wall.
One for the boat house, two for the reeds,
Three for the fish that the market needs.

Four for the well where the water runs slow.
Five for the jars in a neat little row.
Six for the bread that the baker has brought.
Seven for the net with a knot tied too short.

Skip past the apples. Skip past the clay.
Skip back to Wren's before close of day.
If you can skip without stepping in mud,
You may have a beetroot and a warm honey bun.

Pip tried the last step and slipped on the way.
He laughed at his boots, then went on to play.
%%
The year on Kettle Ridge
In Thaw the ditch wakes up and shouts,
The ridge is brown, and the hens come out.
The carrots push up thin and green,
And the windmill turns, and its sails are clean.

In Sowing the seed goes in the ground,
And the soft rain comes, and the rows are found.
Beetroot in the long field, potatoes low,
And the bottom field gets wet, as it does, you know.

In Blossom the apple trees turn white,
And the bees go out in the morning light.
The hives are carried up to the flowers on the hill,
And the bees come home at dusk, and they are still.

In Swarm the bees go up like smoke,
And every keeper runs for a sheet and a cloak.
The swarm goes in a basket, humming low,
To a new hive on the hill, where the flowers grow.

In Longday the sun stands still and high,
The windmill turns, and the children run by.
The miller makes a mark for each turn of the wheel,
And counts the marks at dusk, and says they are real.

In Melon the wheat is gold and tall,
And the melons are big as a child, and that is all.
The cook at the Kettle Inn swears one is bigger than the mill,
And the miller has promised to check it, but never will.

In Reaping we cut the wheat by hand,
And stack the sheaves where the sheaves can stand.
The beetroot comes out of the ground,
And the children carry the baskets round.

In Apple the trees are full and red,
And we climb the ladders and eat instead.
The apples go to the market and the store,
And the rest go to the pig, who asks for more.

In Leaffall the oaks let go their gold,
The hedge goes brown, and the wind grows bold.
The scarecrow wears a pumpkin for a head,
And the crows sit on his shoulders, and are not afraid.

In Frost the windmill squeaks at night,
And the breath goes white in the candle light.
At the Frost fair there are pies, hot and sweet.
Nobody asks what is in them, and nobody asks twice.

In Longnight we light the lamps and sing,
And tell the old tales by the hearth's warm ring.
The children sit on the floor, and the hens sleep in the loft,
And the wind goes round the house, but the house is warm and soft.

In Deepsnow the ridge is white all round,
And the hens sit warm on the eggs they found.
The Kettle Inn has a fire, and the mill has a sleep,
And the children are told to stay in, and count their sheep.

So the year goes round, and the stream goes on,
Each month adds its share, and none is gone.
A deep mind is the same: layer on layer,
Each adds to the stream, and nothing is lost there.

Ossa sings this in winter, when the year is done. The tutors say a mind is like the year: each layer adds its share to the stream, and nothing that goes in is lost.
%%
Weather lore in verse, for the marsh
Fog on the reeds at the break of day
Means keep the cart home and the boat in the bay.
Frogs gone quiet, and the rain is near,
So bring in the washing and sit by the fire here.
A ring round the moon means three days of rain,
So mend the roof, and then mend it again.
A red sky at dusk, and the morning is kind,
So hang out the nets and leave the wool behind.
The wind from the sea bends the reeds to the ground,
Tie down the boats, and the boardwalk all round.
When the mist comes in and the air goes still,
Light the torches early, and light them until
The stars are out and the frogs sing high,
And the lamp on the post keeps the dark nearby.
Dew on the boardwalk, and the grass is wet,
Fair weather is coming, but the frogs say not yet.
Wind from the north, and the fish swim deep,
So bring in the hens, and let the sheep sleep.
A gull on the mast when the day is grey,
Means the boats will come home before the end of the day.
(Lowmarsh weather, learned from the reeds and the frogs. The frogs know the weather best. Ask Wren, and she will say the same.)
%%
Rhyme: skipping song for the farm lane
Skip, skip, round the barn,
Dodge the spider on the arm.
Skip, skip, round the well,
The stone is warm, so they tell.
Skip, skip, round the pen,
Count the pigs, and count again.
Skip, skip, round the hill,
Is the road still open? Still.
Skip, skip, to the gate,
Is the mail late? Mail is late.
Skip, skip, to the door,
Mother's got a tale, and more.
Skip, skip, tutor's here,
Writes down all we say, I fear.
Skip, skip, down the lane,
Autumn's gone, and it'll rain.
Skip, skip, home to tea,
Count the lights, one, two, three.
Skip, skip, round again,
Count the lights, and count again.
Skip, skip, who can say
What the lights are? Skip away.
(Lyle says the skipping song has been in the lane since her mother was a girl, and has twelve verses she has forgotten. These are the new ones. The tutor who stopped in the barn wrote the whole rhyme down, and asked the children to say it twice. Lyle thinks that is a good sign. She thinks someone will want it later.)
%%
Rhyme: the cart in the mud
The cart is stuck, the cart is stuck,
The mule has no more luck.
Push at the back and pull at the front,
And the mud says, "Not today."
Push, push, push, and the wheel comes free,
And the cart goes home for tea.
(A pushing rhyme from the farms below Lowmarsh. Everyone says it at once.)
%%
Verse for the zombie at the gate
A warning verse, sung by the mothers in the Lowmarsh houses on the nights the zombies come up the boardwalk from the marsh. The children sing it back, to keep their courage up, and then they are sent to bed.

Keep the torches on the post,
Keep the gate and bar the door.
The zombie walks on the boardwalk boards,
And it does not like the light.

Keep the lamp at the water's edge,
Keep your child by your side.
The zombie comes with a slow, slow step,
And it will not step inside.

If you hear it on the boardwalk boards,
Do not go out to see.
Keep the torches burning bright,
And the zombie will go free.

Do not shout to call it near,
Do not sing and do not wave.
The zombie goes where the voices go,
Keep your voice in the cave.

(Sung at Lowmarsh when the zombies come from the reeds. Wren says the verse is nonsense, and sings it louder than anyone, because it makes the children stop crying.)
%%
Spring at the Halfway Inn
A clapping song from the yard, copied by Bram of Ambrook.

Thaw has a muddy boot.
Sowing has a muddy shoe.
Blossom has a clean white sleeve,
Until the bees come through.

Clap for the rain on the roof.
Clap for the rain in the pail.
Stamp for the mud beside the door.
Skip when the road is dry.

One, two, the carts roll through.
Three, four, the horses want more.
Five, six, the inn cat sleeps.
Seven, eight, the cook makes heaps.

The cook says, "Heaps of what?"
We say, "Heaps of cakes."
She says, "Then count them all."
We count until she takes one away.

At the Brown Hen the road turns east.
At the Halfway Inn the road runs straight.
At the inn with the red door, ask for a bed.
At the inn with the loose step, watch your head.

The bees come home in a warm rain.
The frogs begin their noisy song.
The windmill turns above the ridge.
The day is short only when we are late.

Bram says to mend the gate before Longday.
Pell says the gate has stood since Apple.
The innkeeper says the gate leans on Pell.
Pell says that is why he visits.

A spring rhyme is best sung with boots on.
A clean floor is best swept after.
%%
Rhyme: the year of the first inn
A long rhyme from the early years, as Wren of Lowmarsh set it down from the song of her grandmother's grandmother. It tells of the first inn on the Long Road, a lesson that went badly, and a wedding that came after. Winter.

Verse one.
They laid the road from Vell to Three Wells,
A cobbled strip across the green.
And at the halfway they built an inn,
The best that ever was seen.

Verse two.
The innkeeper was a man named Hale,
With a pot and a pan and a hat.
He swore he would never ever let
A guest go hungry. That was that.

Verse three.
But the first night came, and the cook was sick,
And the stove was cold as stone.
And the guests were many, and Hale was lost,
And the bread was nowhere known.

Verse four.
He tried to bake, and the dough was flat.
He tried to boil, and it burned.
He tried to roast, and the chicken ran,
And the guests all stood and learned.

Verse five.
They learned that a lesson that goes this wrong
Is a lesson that sticks for good.
For Hale was patient, and Hale was kind,
And he learned to cook as he should.

Verse six.
A year went by, and the inn was full,
And the soup was the best in the land.
And a girl came in with a basket of eggs,
And a ribbon in her hand.

Verse seven.
She was the baker's daughter, from Vell,
She had walked the whole of the road.
She said, "I hear there's a man who can cook
When the bread has gone to the toad."

Verse eight.
Hale laughed so hard that he dropped the pot,
And the girl laughed too, and they sat.
And they talked till the fire burned down to coals,
And a cat came in and sat.

Verse nine.
And in the spring, when the blossom fell,
They were wed at the door of the inn.
And all the travelers came to the feast,
And the dancing did begin.

Verse ten.
The relay lamp at the hill beyond
Sent word to every town:
"A wedding at the Halfway Inn!"
And the whole of the road came down.

Verse eleven.
So that is why on the road today
Every inn has a pot always on,
And a bed for a stranger, and a cat at the fire,
And a welcome at dusk and dawn.

Last verse.
The road is long and the winter is cold,
But the road has a place to stay.
A bowl, a bed, and a friendly word,
At the end of every day.
%%
Autumn weather lore in verse
When the geese fly low and the wind comes round,
Bring the sheep in off the wet ground.

When the spider spins by the mill door,
The rain will come, and then some more.

When the apples fall before the frost,
Count the barrels and count the cost.

When the frogs go quiet in the marsh,
The cold is coming, and it will harsh.

When the moon has a ring round its face,
Light the lamps and fetch the lace.

When the wind goes north and the trees go bare,
Mend the thatch and mend the stair.

Keep the torches lit in the hedgerow,
And keep your boots dry if you go.

(Old weather lore from Kettle Ridge, sung by the carters on the road in the autumn. Each verse is a rule. The carters argue about which ones are right. The mill keeps the tally of which ones came true.)
%%
Counting rhyme: the winter kitchen
One for the stove, and two for the cat,
Three for the kettle, and that is that.
Four for the boots by the door to dry,
Five for the snow piled up so high.
Six for the soup and seven for bread,
Eight for the candle beside the bed,
Nine for the blanket, ten for the night.
Count them again by the stove's low light.

(Ada's counting rhyme, as it is said at Sallowfield. You count on your fingers by the fire, and when you reach ten you start on the other hand.)
%%
Rhyme: the layers and the blame
Wren wrote this for her apprentice Moss, who asked in the autumn how a mind learns when it is made of layers. A tutor's friend had told her the idea, and she turned it into a skipping rhyme, because she says an idea you can skip to is an idea you can keep.

One layer, two layers, three layers, four,
The answer comes out at the door.
If the answer is wrong, then who is to blame?
Not just the last one. They all are the same.

Pass it back, pass it back, tell the one behind,
"You were part of it, and so were you."
Pass it back, pass it back, till the first is in line,
And each one learns what it ought to do.

(Merle of Copperhold was the first to see it. She grew her crystals in layers, one feeding the next. At first they would not learn. Only the last layer knew when it was wrong, and the early ones never heard. So she sent the blame back, from the answer to the first layer, and told each layer its share. The mind began to learn hard things. Merle said it was like a mill with many wheels. If the flour is bad, you do not only blame the last wheel.)
%%
Counting rhyme: the apples at Ambrook
One for the basket, two for the cart,
Three for the pig, who has earned its part.
Four for the cook, and five for the mill,
Six for the children, who eat them still.
Seven for the store, and eight for the rest,
Nine for the tree that gives its best.
Ten for the grey tree by the pond,
The oldest of all, and the sweetest beyond.

Eleven for the press at the mill-house wall,
Twelve for the winter, and the cold, and the fall.

Count them out, and count them in.
One is for the bee, and the bee is thin.
%%
Weather lore: the winter signs
When the smoke goes straight up from the chimney top,
The frost will be hard, and the cold will not stop.
When the smoke lies down on the roof like a cat,
Snow is coming. Mind your hat.

When the stars are many and twinkle bright,
Put on your wool for a bitter night.
When the moon wears a ring of pale grey light,
Snow is coming by tomorrow night.

When the hens go to bed before the sun,
Snow will fall before the day is done.
When the well breathes steam in the early light,
The ground is hard and the frost is tight.

When the fox comes close to the kitchen door,
Put out a crust. He needs it more.
When the bees stay in and will not roam,
Mind your wood, and stay at home.

When the icicles grow from the roof to the ground,
A hard long winter is coming round.

(Ada's weather rhyme, which she had from her grandmother. Some of it is true. The part about the hens is true. The part about the hat is only good advice.)
%%
Riddle of the Copper Hill
Clap once for a stone and twice for a seed.
What lies in the hill that we have not seen?
The miners say copper, the children say gold.
The old folk say, "Wait till the tale has been told."

They found a new copper vein above the Deep Works.
Hesk sent word to the hamlet at Kettle Ridge.
Tam went to look, but he brought no pick.
He brought a loaf, and Hesk took the larger half.

A fox came at dusk and watched the hen house.
Pip clapped the door and the fox ran off.
The hens gave no thanks. They laid one egg.

When the relay house grew bigger than the town,
some said its mind could count every grain.
Others said it knew the sound of rain.
No one could check all its work.
So we clapped for the wheat, and left the rest to rumor.
%%
Clapping rhyme: the windmill turns
The windmill turns and the windmill squeaks,
The miller's tally lasts for weeks.
Clap, clap, turn around,
Count the sacks upon the ground.

One for wheat and one for beet,
One for flour to bake and eat.
Clap, clap, stamp your feet,
Keep the time along the street.

The wind comes down from the cold north side,
The sails go round and the children ride
On the cart that brings the grain along,
Singing this our windmill song.

Clap, clap, turn around,
Count the sacks upon the ground.
Clap, clap, stamp your feet,
The windmill turns and the rhyme is sweet.

(Children at the hamlet below Kettle Ridge clap this one on the way to school. They clap faster each time until someone laughs and stops.)
%%
The thin harvest song
The sacks are light and the bread is thin,
But the seed is kept in the dry chest in.
The rain went quiet in the Sowing days,
And the wheat stood short in the brown, dry haze.
The heads came out thin, and the stalks were small,
And the sacks at the mill were light in the hall.
The sacks are light and the bread is thin,
But the seed is kept in the dry chest in.
We cut the sheaves in the Reaping sun,
We counted them twice, and then once more, for fun.
Eleven sacks from the sea-wall row,
Where forty stood up a year ago.
The sacks are light and the bread is thin,
But the seed is kept in the dry chest in.
So eat the fish, and eat the kelp,
And eat the beetroot, and never yelp.
Keep the seed, and keep it dry,
And the next year's bread will rise up high.
The sacks are light and the bread is thin,
But the seed is kept in the dry chest in.
The mill keeps the tally on a board by the door,
And the board says less than it said the year before.
The children count the sacks, and then they count the crumbs,
And the old ones count the winters on their thumbs.
The sacks are light and the bread is thin,
But the seed is kept in the dry chest in.
We shared the bread by the house and the count,
The council stood up and read it out.
No one went hungry at the end of the day,
Though the bread was thin and the crust was grey.
The sacks are light and the bread is thin,
But the seed is kept in the dry chest in.
(Sung at Lowmarsh in the cold of the year, after the thin harvest. The last verse is sung twice, and the second time much louder.)
%%
Skipping rhyme at Three Wells
Mara made this rhyme for the children at the farm outside Three Wells.

One, two, step in time,
Three, four, the gate is mine.
Five, six, skip the stone,
Seven, eight, back home.

Mind the ditch and mind the rake,
Mind the puddle by the gate.
If you land beside the hen,
She will count you up to ten.

One, two, turn around,
Three, four, feet on ground.
Five, six, skip once more,
Seven, eight, touch the door.

Pip came to visit from Kettle Ridge and tried the rhyme. He skipped over the ditch, then stepped in the water on the other side. He said the ditch had moved. It had not.

We keep the rake against the fence and the gate on its hook. The children may skip after the work is done, but not through the beetroot rows. Last spring, Bel skipped through the rows and came out wearing two beet leaves like green ears.

One, two, step in time,
Three, four, mind the lime.
Five, six, shut the gate,
Seven, eight, now you are late.

The lime is for the wall, not the game. Mara says this each time. The children say the last line louder each time.
%%
Notice: what the marsh folk say now
Put up by Ferris at the farm gate for the carters.

We are all well here. The roof is mended and the well is dug deeper and the pigs are fat. But there are things folk say, and I write them down so the carters know what they will hear.

Some say the marsh is going down and the water with it, so the wells run dry. Some say it is the ships at Saltreach, too many and too big, and the sea has been pulled about. Some say it is the mines at Copperhold, and the stone down there is warm, and warm stone drinks water. Nobody knows. The well man digs and says nothing.

Some say there is a cough at Lowmarsh. Wren gives out her jars and says keep the little ones warm and keep the windows open. Some say it is the water. Wren says drink boiled water and stop saying things you cannot prove.

I do not say. I cut stone. If you hear a hum at night from the west, it is the wind in the reeds, and if it is not the wind, I do not know what it is, and neither does anyone else.

Bring your own water. Ferris.
%%
The Gate Song
One for the latch and two for the bar.
Three for the torch where the shadows are.
Four for the bucket, five for the broom.
Six for the cat who patrols the room.

Rye skips from the door to the woodpile.
I clap from the step and lose the count.
We do it again, because Aunt Sella says
a song should be finished before supper.

The autumn wind lifts leaves from the lane.
It puts them back by the gate.
The sea beyond the houses is gray.
The fish stall shuts early now.
Still the baker sends warm bread next door,
and Mother puts apples in the pot.

One for the latch and two for the bar.
Three for the torch where the shadows are.
Four for the bucket, five for the broom.
Six for the cat who patrols the room.

Last night a zombie stood at the gate.
It leaned on the bars and scraped one hand.
We stayed inside while Uncle Marr lit a torch.
The cat watched from the window and made no sound.
The zombie turned away before the torch burned low.
In the morning Rye found one muddy mark
beside the gate, and a leaf caught in the bar.

A man from the quay says the north lights
are fires far out at sea.
The lamp keeper says they are not from any boat.
Mother says we should stop talking at supper.
So we count the spoons, and then the bowls.

One for the latch and two for the bar.
Three for the torch where the shadows are.
Four for the bucket, five for the broom.
Six for the cat who patrols the room.
%%
Counting rhyme: the harvest wagon
One wagon, two wagons, three wagons, four,
The oats are in, and we want more.
Five wagons, six wagons, seven wagons, eight,
The potatoes come up on a plate.
Nine wagons, ten wagons, eleven, twelve,
The carrots are piled up on the shelf.

A good harvest, a good harvest, it is a thing to sing,
The barn is full, the cellar full, the hen house, everything.
A good harvest, a good harvest, we will not go without,
Bring the cider, bring the bread, and pass the stew about.

Twelve wagons home and one more yet,
The best of all the year, I bet.
The farmer counted twice, then thrice,
And said, "The north is very nice."

Old Hollis went from farm to farm that summer, buying and selling and listening. At every one he heard a different harvest rhyme, and at every one the counting stopped at a different number. He wrote them down in a row. He said it was like watching a mind learn to count, a little at a time.

"I am told a young mind knows one, two, three," he wrote. "Then it is wrong for a long while. Then one day it can count to twelve, and cannot tell you how. The tutors say the counting is spread across its layers, a bit in each one. A stream runs down the middle and carries the count from layer to layer. I asked a tutor to show me the stream. She laughed. You cannot see it. You can only see that the count comes out right."

"That is true of wagons too," I said. "You cannot see the harvest. You can only see the barn is full."

The farm outside Northpoint counted thirteen wagons that summer. It was the best crop in eleven years. The farmer's daughter made up the verse about the north being very nice, and Hollis put it in his ledger beside the price of salt.

Wagons: 13. Salt: 2 emeralds a barrel. Daughter: pleased.
%%
Skipping rhyme, by the farm well
Skip, skip, count the well,
One for the bucket and two for the bell.
Three for the sheep and four for the cow,
Five for the gate that will not bow.
Six for the hens and seven for the pig,
Eight for the hive, and nine for the twig.
Ten for the hour when the rope comes down,
Skip out, skip out, and do not fall down!

(Turn the rope on the count of ten. Whoever trips turns next. Nobody argues with the rope.)
%%
Rhyme: the way to Kettle Ridge
From Ambrook pond go up the hill,
Past the bridge with the loose plank still.
Turn at the oak with the split in two,
And the ridge road opens out for you.

Count the waymarks, one to nine,
Each one holds a torch and sign.
If the wind is in your face,
You are going the right place.

Kettle Ridge is high and wide,
Wheat on top and beets beside.
Hear the windmills squeak and turn,
That is how the ridge you learn.

Toby made this rhyme to keep
The road in mind for sheep and sheep.
If you are lost, say it aloud,
And you will find the ridge and crowd.
%%
Lesson: the day the drill went wrong
Nessa's drill notes, the tutor house at Vell, winter.

I had six apprentices in the drill room, in their row, each with a small mind in its crystal on the bench. The lesson was build. The drill board had a small field drawn on it, a wall of stone round the edge, a gap for a gate. The order card said:

> build a wall round the field
= build

I showed them the board. I showed them the wall. I showed them the gap. Then I gave each mind the order and let it work.

Pip's mind went first. It built the wall. It built it four blocks high and put no gap in it, and then it walked into the wall and tried to walk through it, and stood there, pushing. The meaning was right. The doing was wrong.

The second mind built the wall round the board instead of round the field, which was neat but useless, because the board is not a field. The third built nothing and gave the meaning come, which was not the order at all. The fourth built the wall and the gap, and then built a second wall behind it for no reason I could see, and stood back, pleased with itself, if a mind can be pleased.

The fifth and sixth built the wall and the gap and stopped. Good. Two out of six.

I wrote on the board: the same kind of example, again and again. That is the whole of my trade. You show a mind the same kind of thing, and each time it is wrong you change it a little, and slowly it gets better. It does not learn from me telling it. It learns from being wrong and being put right.

But look at Pip's mind. It knew the meaning build. It did not know a wall with no gap is a wall you cannot walk through. Nobody drilled it on doors. I went home and thought about that all evening. The mind was not wrong about the word. It was wrong about the world, and I had not shown it the world. I had only shown it the board.

Next drill I will show them a gap. And a door. And a wall with a door in it, and a wall with no door, and I will let them be wrong about both until they are right.

Never send an untested mind to the fields. I sent six, and four of them built me a wall I could not walk through, and one of them built the world wrong.
%%
Rhyme of the inside of a mind
Look inside the crystal, what do you see?
Some of the weights, as many as three.
Here is the corner that knows the sound.
Here is the line that holds the ground.
Some of it we have found and named.
Some is still hidden, and not yet claimed.
Ask what the rest of it does, and then
we do not know, and we ask again.

The tutors held a lamp to the glass,
and looked for where the learning was.
They found a part that knows a word,
and one that knows the way it is heard.
They found a part that keeps the place
where words that match sit close in space.
But what the rest of it is for,
they could not see, and so they wrote no more.

Some weights sing out when a word draws near,
some hold their tongue and do not appear.
The tutors marked each one in ink,
and sat by the lamp, and sat to think.

They asked the crystal why it knew.
It showed the part, and that was true.
It did not say what all the rest
was for. The tutors did their best.

Wise tutors do not shout or lie.
They say: we found some, and some pass by.
So write down the part we know,
and leave a space for the rest to grow.
%%
Digging rhyme: the well song
Dig, dig, dig and dig,
Down we go, the hole grows big.
Pick for the stone and spade for the clay,
Dig a little more today.

Pull, pull, pull the rope,
Up comes the bucket, full of hope.
Hand over hand and heave, ho, heave,
Clay in the bucket, and clay to leave.

Down, down, down we dig,
Past the root and past the twig.
Cold and darker, wet and deep,
Where the sweet water lies asleep.

Splash! Splash! Hear it run!
Water at last, and the work is done.
Pour a cup and raise it high,
Here's to the well that won't run dry.

(Hazel's crew sing this at every dig, one line to a pull on the rope. The last verse is sung at the bottom, with a cup, before anybody is allowed to come up.)
%%
The dry well
A rhyme from a house at the edge of Copperhold, said by Hesk's neighbors in summer.
The well is dry, the well is dry,
the bucket comes up high and dry.
Go to the stream, go to the pond,
carry the water from beyond.
Dig it deeper, dig it low,
and let the cool clear water flow.
When the well is full again,
we will thank the neighbors then.
Bring a pail and bring a cup,
fill it, friend, and drink it up.
%%
Clapping rhyme: add and carry on
Clap, clap, a little in,
Clap, clap, more begins.
Clap, clap, carry on,
Clap, clap, nothing gone.

One two three, add a bit,
Four five six, and keep the rest of it.
Seven eight nine, one more there,
Ten! and clap your hands in the air.

First layer, first clap, add a thought.
Second layer, second clap, add what you caught.
Third layer, third clap, add a found thing.
Stream, stream, stream, and the whole mind sings.

A note by Hollis, in the summer of 205, written at the farm outside Northpoint where the long days never seem to end.

The children here play this at the gate while their parents bring in the hay. One child claps and says a thing she noticed. The next child claps and repeats the whole line, then adds one more. By the end of the row of children, the line is long and nobody has dropped a word. If a child drops a word, the row starts over, and all of them groan.

I asked the farmer's boy who taught them the game. He said a tutor from Vell, on her way north. She told them a mind with many layers is like a row of children. Each one passes on what the last one said, and adds a little. If the layers pass it like a whisper, the first word is gone by the tenth child. If they pass it like this game, where each one repeats everything and adds one thing, nothing is lost.

That is the stream in a mind, she said. A line that runs down through all the layers, and each layer adds to it. She said the old tutors tried for years to make deep minds without it, and the minds would not learn. The blame for a wrong answer could not get back to the early layers. It faded on the way, like a whisper. With the stream, the blame goes straight back, and the early layers learn.

I do not know if it is true. I am a trader. But I know the children's game works, and I know the farm's hay was in before the rain. That is two true things in one summer, and I am content.

Summer of 205. Hay: in. Rain: late. Children: still clapping.
%%
The Dry Well
Bram wrote this in Blossom, after the well by the Brown Hen ran dry.

Draw the rope up, draw it slow.
No splash below, no water to show.
Look in the bucket, look in the pail.
Only a stone and a snail.

We sent a boy to the inn door.
He ran to the road and came back once more.
He said, "The spring is dry at the wall."
The innkeeper said, "Then we must use them all."

We filled two jars from the next stream.
We carried them in a careful line.
Pell held one jar against his knee.
The other jar spilled on his shoe.

The horse drank first. Then the cook.
Then the guests, with their cups in a row.
The innkeeper saved one cup for the cat.
The cat smelled it and walked away.

By noon, the well had not filled.
The bucket stayed dry in the shade.
By dusk, the stream jars stood empty.
In the morning, a thin spring ran again.

We do not know where the water came from.
The innkeeper says the hill was thirsty.
Pell says the hill should pay for his shoe.
%%
Autumn lore for Ambrook
When the mill-pond mist sits low at dawn,
The first frost comes before the birds are gone.
When the oak drops acorns early and fast,
The winter will be long, and it will last.
When the bees come home at noon in a line,
The rain will hold off, and the sky will be fine.
When the bridge is wet and the plank is loose,
Walk on the left, and do not be a fool.
When the windmill on the ridge stands still,
Stack the wood, and keep it dry, and keep it still.
When the carts go slow up the Long Road hill,
The carters have sold, and are grumbling still.

Ansel made these up in his head at the kiln, where there is nothing else to do but count the smoke.
%%
Clap for the Rain
Clap for the rain on the roof of the shed.
Clap for the drops on the old flower bed.
Tap with two fingers, then clap with a hand.
Rain for the gardens, rain for the land.

Rye says the clouds are carrying pails.
Aunt Sella says clouds have no handles.
Uncle Marr says the rain will wash mud
from the stone step by the kitchen door.
It did not. We scraped it with a board.

Clap for the rain on the roof of the shed.
Tap for the bees in their box by the bed.
Clap for the apples that thump in the grass.
Clap for the boats when the gray clouds pass.

A woman at the quay says the sea has gone quiet.
Her net came up with fish in it.
Uncle Marr says a quiet sea is still a sea.
Then he asks Rye to bring in the washing.

Clap for the rain on the roof of the shed.
Clap for the dry socks and the warm bread.
When the last drop falls from the eaves,
clap for the wind that shakes the leaves.

Rye taught this at the house beside the Saltreach road. The children clap too fast at the last line. The roof still leaks above the flour shelf.
%%
Rhyme of the old map
In the chest in the loft, under the quilt,
Under the lamp that my father built,
There was a map, all brown and torn,
With one corner chewed and one corner worn.

It showed seven houses, drawn in ink,
A pond, a path, and a goat, I think.
There was a red cross by a little shed,
And under the cross, these words were read:

"Nine paces north from the gate you go,
Then turn to the chimney, crooked and low.
Three paces left, by the little shed:
Dig where the grass is greenest instead."

We dug all day in the frozen ground,
And all we found was a stone, quite round.
Then Dov said, "Wait! The shed was here
Before the new shed. The map is clear."

We moved the shed and we dug again.
The spade rang on a ring of stone.
We lifted a lid of oak gone soft,
And water lay below, alone.

Senna came from Ambrook with her spade
And cleaned it out, and the water was made
As sweet as the sweetest on the road.
Never throw away a map, I'm told.

(Ada's rhyme for the children of Sallowfield. The old well is in the yard behind the goat shed. The goat has her own trough from it, and thinks it was her idea.)
%%
The skipping rhyme of Northpoint
Rope goes round, and round we go,
up the tower, rung by rung, slow.
One, two, three, four, five,
ninety rungs, and still alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
lamp at the top, and snow again.

Eleven, twelve, the fox comes near.
Thirteen, fourteen, do not fear.
Fifteen, sixteen, mind the ice.
Seventeen, eighteen, sing it twice.

Nineteen, twenty, the bell is ringing.
Twenty-one, the helper's bringing
a bucket up, a bucket down,
twenty-two, and not a drop around.
Twenty-three, to the stove we go,
twenty-four, the wind is ho!

Twenty-five, we wave goodbye.
Twenty-six, the glass is high.
Twenty-seven, the lamp is clean.
Twenty-eight, the south is seen.
Twenty-nine, the message flies,
thirty, up to the sky.

Forty, forty, the mare has foaled,
forty-one, the colt is cold.
Forty-two, it stands and falls,
forty-three, it stands for all.

Forty-four, the ice camp sled.
Forty-five, the sack of bread.
Fifty, fifty, the snow is deep.
Fifty-one, the foxes creep.
Fifty-two, the lamp is lit.
Fifty-three, the wick is fit.
Sixty, sixty, the message goes.
Sixty-one, the south replies.
Seventy, seventy, the wind is strong.
Seventy-one, we sing a song.
Eighty, eighty, mind the stair.
Eighty-one, the mittens there.
Eighty-two, a helper's hand.
Eighty-three, the frosty land.
Eighty-four, the stove is warm.
Eighty-five, and no one's harm.
Ninety-one, the fox is gone.
Ninety-two, the stove is on.
Ninety-three, the hens are in.
Ninety-four, the wind is thin.
Ninety-five, the bread is cold.
Ninety-six, the stories told.

Ninety-seven, the bell is rung.
Ninety-eight, the lamp is hung.
Ninety-nine, the lamp is clean.
One hundred, the sky is seen.
One hundred and ten, the snow will fall.
One hundred and twenty, and the wind will call.
One hundred and thirty, the stair is wide.
One hundred and forty, the helper's inside.

A hundred, hundred, the rope goes slow,
the snow comes down like flour, and so
we count the snowflakes on the sill,
and never count them all, and still.

Ninety, ninety, climb up slow,
ninety rungs, and down we go.
Rope goes round, and round we go,
up the tower, rung by rung, slow.
%%
Counting rhyme for the market day
Sung by the children who count the stalls on market day, when they go up and down the boardwalk to the square, and count everything they see on the way.

One fish, two fish, three eels in a pail,
Four frogs on the boardwalk, all in a trail.
Five carts from Three Wells with their wheels going round,
Six sacks of flour on the cart from the ground.

Seven bells ringing from the square up the hill,
Eight stalls of honey, and every one still.
Nine children with buns in a fist and a grin,
Ten coppers paid, and the buns go in.

Eleven goats, and twelve geese in a row,
Thirteen lanterns, all lit, and the wind starting to blow.
Fourteen steps home, and fifteen more to the door,
And sixteen is the number of the things we have counted before.

(The children try to get to sixteen before the bell. Nobody has ever got past twenty, except Bel, who says she counted the gulls, and was not believed.)
%%
Rhyme for the long day and the well
A summer rhyme, from a house at the edge of Copperhold. Hesk wrote it for his apprentice Clank, who cannot sing, but stands in the yard and listens. The rhyme tells how the well ran dry and what the people did. It is meant to be said slowly, with a pause between the verses for a drink.
The well ran dry in Longday,
the buckets came up bare.
We called to the neighbors,
and the neighbors came to share.
Each brought a pail of water,
each brought a loaf of bread,
and we sat in the yard together
till the stars were overhead.
The pond was low and muddy,
the stream was thin and slow,
but a pail from every household
set the garden right to grow.
We dug the well another hand,
and then another still,
and on the third day, dark and cool,
the water rose, until
the bucket came up laughing,
the bucket came up full.
We drank, and Hesk drank deepest,
and the neighbors drank as well.
The well is deep this summer,
the well is deep and good.
We will dig it deeper every year
as any neighbor would.
%%
Clap for the bridge, a clapping rhyme
Clap for the bridge, and clap for the stream,
Clap for the planks, and the boys who dream.
One for the miller, two for the mill,
Three for the plank that is loose and still.
Four for the goat, who is never still,
Five for the cart that is stuck on the hill.
Six for the bread, and seven for the pie,
Eight for the cat who will not say why.
Nine for the bell, and ten for the gate,
Clap once more, and the children wait.

(Clap on the beat. Stamp on the last line. The loose plank is always stamped twice, for luck.)
%%
Skipping rhyme: the sum on the slate
One step down and one step round,
Write the first sum on the ground.
Two steps back and then you see
The sum is only one, two, three.

Carry the one, and check it twice,
Write the next step, then think it nice.
Take the rope, and jump it through,
Cross each sum, and then start anew.

Four and five and six and seven,
Slate in hand, the rope is in the air.
Count each step and say it plain,
Check the answer, then again.

Oh, the sum is nine, the sum is ten,
Write it down and check it, then
Say it out and say it true,
And then the rope jumps down for you.

(Chanted at Kettle Ridge in the school yard, when a child is stuck on a sum. Every step goes on the slate, one under the other. The children jump while they chant, and they do not stop until the teacher says the answer is right.)
%%
The farm's spring counting game
By Bel, with lines added by Mara after the first game.

We play this game beside the farm outside Three Wells, after the tools are put away. One child calls the count. The rest clap and step from one fence post to the next. Nobody steps into the planted rows. Nobody takes the rake for a stick.

One for the seed, and two for the ground,
Three for the rain that makes no sound.
Four for the boots beside the door,
Five for the hen that wants one more.

Six for the bucket, seven for the well,
Eight for the frog with a muddy bell.
Nine for the cart, ten for the horse,
Turn at the gate and follow the course.

The frog has no bell. It sits by the ditch and makes a noise like a wet hinge. We call it the bell because the rhyme needs a sound.

In Blossom, the children helped clear stones from the field edge. We put the stones in a low heap beside the road. The big ones mark the cart turn. The small ones keep the ditch bank firm. Then we counted the baskets of stones. We counted twice because Bel counted the empty basket as full.

When the field is dry, we hoe between the rows. When the soil is wet, we leave it alone. A boot sinks in wet ground and brings half the field home. Mara says the field has enough of us already.

Clap once for the cloud, clap twice for the sun,
Clap three for the work that is waiting to be done.
Step past the puddle, turn by the gate,
Step back for the cart, or you will be late.

Pell came along the road while we were playing. His cart had flour, jars, and a sack of apples. We stopped and let him pass. One jar rattled. Pell said it was only keeping time.

After the game, each child chose one task. We filled the water pails, shut the hen house, and carried the loose sticks to the wood pile. The last child shut the gate. The last child was Bel, who had to come back because she had left it open.

Count the seeds, count the rows,
Count the drops the spring rain owes.
Count the tools before you go,
Count your friends, then count once more.

We count our friends by standing in a row. Pip joined us from Kettle Ridge and stood at the end. He had mud on both boots and no mud on his hat. Tam says that is a kind of progress.
%%
The twelve months rhyme
Thaw is first, when the ice runs thin,
Sowing is next, and the seed goes in.
Blossom is pink on the apple tree,
Swarm is the day the bees fly free.
Longday has the sun till late at night,
Melon is sweet, and the fields are bright.
Reaping brings the wheat in gold,
Apple brings the fruit to hold.
Leaffall brings the leaves down brown,
Frost comes white on the wall and the gate.
Longnight is the dark that has come to stay,
Deepsnow lies on the roofs and the hay.
Twelve months in the year, and the year goes round,
Back to Thaw, when the ice comes down.
Thaw: the ice goes off the water trough, and the first frogs call from the reeds.
Sowing: the seed goes into the ground, and the rain must come before Longday.
Blossom: the bees come out, and the apple trees go white in the orchard.
Swarm: the bees leave the old hive, and the whole street runs after them with pans.
Longday: the sun stays up past supper, and the children will not go to bed.
Melon: the melons are sweet, and the sea wind is warm on the quay.
Reaping: the wheat is cut, and every house turns out to help with the sheaves.
Apple: the fruit falls, and the pigs get the first of it.
Leaffall: the leaves come down, and the nights grow long.
Frost: the first white comes on the grass, and the boats are pulled up on the slip.
Longnight: the dark comes early, and the torches are lit at the door before the bell.
Deepsnow: the snow lies deep, and the old folk tell their stories by the fire.
Say them with your fingers, one for each month. Thumb for Thaw, and so on round the hand. When you reach the end, start again, and do not stop until the sheep come home.
%%
Rhyme: a long summer
A longer rhyme, sung in turns, made by Mira at the hamlet near Saltreach in the middle of summer. It has a verse for the fence, a verse for the melon and a verse for the cat, who is in all of them.

First verse. The fence.
Old Garrick had a fence of oak,
Old Hale had a hedge of thorn.
They quarreled about it, joke by joke,
From the sun's rise to the morn.
Said Garrick, "Your hedge is in my land."
Said Hale, "Your fence is in mine."
They stood there, each with a hat in hand,
And neither one would resign.

Second verse. The cat.
A cat sat in the middle of the line
And washed her face in the sun.
She did not know the land was mine,
Or his, or anyone.
She slept on the fence, then on the hedge,
Then on the ground between.
She did not care for either ledge.
She was the cat of the scene.

Third verse. The melon.
Then Bess brought a melon, round and gold,
As big as a barrel's head.
She cut it in two, as she was told,
And put it between them instead.
"Eat," she said, "and then we'll see
Whose is the land, and whose the tree."
They ate, and ate, and ate a lot,
And forgot what the quarrel was not.

Fourth verse. The end.
The melon was sweet, the day was long,
The cat was asleep on the rind.
Garrick began a little song.
Hale put his hat behind.
They moved the fence a foot, or two,
And planted a flower where the thorns grew.
The cat got up and walked away.
And the quarrel is over, so they say.

Refrain, to be sung by all.
Eat the melon, let it be,
Neither yours nor mine, you see.
Share the land and share the sun,
Share the melon, everyone.
%%
Skipping rhyme: the window of letters
Dace wrote this out for the children at Kettle Ridge, who would not let him leave the market until he had. They chant it as the rope goes round.

One letter, then the next, along the line.
The reading mind looks back, and reads each sign.
Sixty letters wide its window goes,
It takes the ones that matter, as it knows.
Then it guesses the letter that is due,
And if it is wrong, it learns, and guesses true.

Look back, look back, and guess the next!
Keep the ones that matter. Jump the rope, then jump the rest!
%%
Clapping rhyme: the Brown Hen gate
Down the Long Road, one, two, three,
Carts go by, and so do we.
Stop at the Brown Hen, four, five, six,
The gate goes shut with a clunk and a click.
Madge brings the stew in a pot of clay,
Seven, eight, nine, and we eat it all day.
Ten claps, and the torches lit,
Start again, and nobody quit.

(Clapped in pairs in the yard while the carts are loaded. The claps get faster on every line, and the last ones are the loudest. Pell says the rhyme is older than the inn. Madge says it is older than her good ears, and she has had good ears for sixty summers.)
%%
Clap, Count, and Look Again
A yard rhyme from the hamlet near Kettle Ridge.
Written by Pip after Tam corrected the count.

Clap for the ditch and stamp for the road.
Clap for the wheat with its bright green load.
Turn when the windmill squeaks at the hill.
Stop when the wheel is quiet and still.

One for the rake, two for the hoe.
Three for the seeds in the rows below.
Four for the apples, five for the bees.
Six for the rain that bends the trees.

Seven for the hens by the hen house door.
Eight for the fox tracks beside the floor.
Nine for the torch that Tam keeps alight.
Ten for the latch that we check each night.

The fox came again when the dusk was red.
It watched the hens from the hedge instead.
Tam walked the yard with a torch in his hand.
Pip shut the gate, as the rules command.

The hens made a fuss, then settled down.
One laid an egg in the straw on the ground.
Pip wrote the count on a board by the shed.
Tam said, "Write it again after bread."

The new copper vein is on the mine road.
Hesk says it runs through a hard stone load.
He marked the place and sent the word north.
A relay keeper copied the message forth.
Now miners bring tools and carry the ore.
They leave the old path and use the new door.

At the great relay house, the mind reads records.
It was drilled on many pages from the Archive.
It learned the patterns that came before each mark.
Then it guesses the next mark, and writes a reply.
That is what the tutors told us in the school.

The house is bigger than Three Wells, they say.
No tutor can walk through it in one day.
No tutor can test each part of the great mind.
It has too many pages and too much to find.

A traveler says it can answer any letter.
A clerk says that no mind knows every matter.
A keeper says it can read a hundred shelves at once.
A miner says it heard the stone hum at night.
No two tell the same tale, so we do not choose one.

We know that a mind learns from what it is shown.
We know that a tutor must test what it has not seen.
We know a big mind is hard to test by one person.
We do not know what it can do beyond its work.

Clap for the wheat and stamp for the rain.
Count the hens twice, then count them again.
%%
The well digger's tally, kept by Ferris
The well man came in Sowing and dug our well deeper. I kept his tally for him because he does not write. Here it is, in his words, and I wrote them down as he said them.

Day one: mud. Day two: mud and a stone. Day three: the stone was a big one, and the boy went down and would not, and then he did. Day four: water, a little. Day five: more water, and that is enough, and give me my money.

He says, all the wells are going down. He says, I have dug forty wells in my life and the water is lower in every one of them than it was in my father's day, and my father dug wells too. He says, the marsh is going down. He says, do not ask me why. He says, I am a well man, not a scholar.

I asked him about the warm stone at Copperhold, and he said he had heard it, and he had also heard it was the old sump and not the stone at all. I asked him about the hum, and he said he had heard that too, and he had heard it was the reeds, and he had heard it was the mines, and he had heard it was the big ships coming up the coast at night, and he had heard it was nothing. He says, when folk do not know a thing, they make up three, and then they argue about which one.

He says, dig deeper and it will do for the summer. So we dug deeper. It does for the summer. I am writing this in the summer and it is doing for the summer.

The well man's tally is paid. His boy has gone south. The roof is mended. The stone is good. I do not know about the rest and I am not a scholar either.
%%
Clapping rhyme for the healing house
Clap, clap, the kettle is hot,
Wren has the bread and the bag and the pot.
Clap, clap, the jars on the shelf,
Count them out loud and count them yourself.
Clap, clap, the new one stands by the door,
Holding the bag and asking for more.
It does not talk, and it does not cry.
It only waits, and waits till we go by.
Clap, clap, the reeds are wet,
Clap, clap, the frogs are on the net.
Clap, clap, the tea is steeped,
Wren says drink it, and nobody sleeps.
(Clap with a partner, and change hands on every line. Whoever misses first must fetch the kettle.)
%%
Hollis, on the potato field
Hollis the trader came north in the summer of 203 and stopped at a farm outside Northpoint to wait out the rain. The farmer's wife made him write a rhyme before she would feed him. This is what he wrote on the back of a sack ticket.

The potatoes are fat and the carrots are long,
The beetroot is red and the barley strong.
The wind off the north is as kind as it goes,
And the frost is a month away, nobody knows.

I carried a story from Vell on my back,
Of minds with so many layers, a stack.
They said a deep mind was too deep to teach,
For the lesson got lost before it could reach.

Then a tutor said, "Do not make the lesson walk
Through every layer, with all of the talk.
Run a stream down the middle, and let each layer
Add what it found, and not take the rest away."

So the first layer finds a little, and puts it in.
The second finds some more, and puts that in.
The stream gets richer all the way down,
Like a ditch that is filling the field with brown.

And when the mind is wrong, the blame can run
Straight down the stream, and reach everyone.
No layer is far from the answer now.
That is the trick, and that is how.

I do not know why it works. Nobody does.
I know the potatoes are fat because
The rain came on time and the sun came too.
I wish you a harvest as good as you.

(Hollis ate three bowls of stew. The farmer's wife said it was the worst rhyme she had heard and the best-paid one. The sack ticket hangs by the stove.)
%%
The fence rhyme
Said by the children at the edge of Copperhold, in summer. Hesk, who lives next to the quarrel, wrote it down.
Your side, my side, who is right?
The fence is crooked, day and night.
Your goat, my goat, both are fat.
They eat the hedge, and that is that.
Pull a post and push it back,
now it leans the other track.
Shake a hand and share the bread,
let the goats go where they led.
Your side, my side, who is wrong?
We have fought a summer long.
Plant a flower on the line,
now the fence is yours and mine.
%%
Note: the great relay house
Tutor's copy, kept at Vell, no year given.

The council has finished the relay house at the crossroads, and it is bigger than any we have built. The tower is one thing. This is the house at its foot, and the house is the size of a town. They built it of cobblestone and glass and copper, and the lamp room at the top can be seen from Three Wells on a clear night.

Inside stands the big mind. The crystal is taller than a person now. It sits on its stand ringed by quickeners kept cool with water carried up from the wells. The quickeners take the warmth away so the mind can work. How they do it, and what they draw on to run day and night, the tutors do not say plainly, and I will not pretend I know.

Here is the plain idea of why they built it so big. A tutor found, years back, that a mind with a bigger crystal, drilled longer on more writing, grows better by a curve you can draw on a board before the mind is grown. So if you want a better mind, you give it more crystal and more writing. That is all. There is no trick to it. You make it big and you feed it and you wait.

The trouble is the checking. A mind this size has more weights in it than any one tutor can look at in a lifetime. Our tutors test a small mind on drills it was never drilled on, and that teaches them whether it is sound. Three tutors can do that for a small mind. Nobody can do it for this one. So they test it on the drills, and the drills are good, and the mind passes them, and the tutors go home and do not know what else it can do.

Some say the biggest minds write letters no reader can tell from a person's. Some say they answer questions no tutor ever set. Some say they have gone quiet inside and only answer the relays when they please. I have heard all three at the inn, from people who heard them from somebody else. The tutors who work there will not say. They test what they can test.

Isla used to say a mind grows better by a curve you can draw. She did not say what to do when the curve goes past the top of the board.

(Found in the tutor's box at the crossroads relay house. Copied and filed by Oren.)
%%
Winter verses, one for each month
Sung at Saltreach and Kettle Ridge both, by whoever has time. Hazel copied them out for the children, one page each, in the winter of 204.

Thaw, Thaw, the ice goes soft,
Sowing, Sowing, we plant it aloft.
Blossom comes, the bees are out,
Swarm comes after, that is the shout!

Longday, Longday, the sun stays late,
Melon, Melon, we eat it by the gate.
Reaping, Reaping, the wheat comes down,
Apple, Apple, the orchard is brown.

Leaffall, Leaffall, the trees let go,
Frost comes next with its icy toe.
Longnight, Longnight, the dark comes in,
Deepsnow, Deepsnow, and then Thaw again.

The Longnight song, for when the lamp is low:

Light the lamp and stir the pot,
Put the bread where the fire is hot.
Longnight, Longnight, sing it slow,
The stove is warm and the snow is snow.

Deepsnow game: one child stands by the door, the rest sit by the stove. The one at the door counts the months out loud, Thaw first, Deepsnow last. At each month a child must stand. If you stand on the wrong month, you sit down and the next child tells the story of your month.

Hazel's note: The verses are for children who cannot yet count to twelve. The grown ones sing them too, and get the months wrong on purpose, so the children can correct them. Ama says the children have never once got it wrong. Ama says that is the trouble.
%%
Rhyme: the new towers
A skipping rhyme. Wren of Lowmarsh wrote it down, as her grandmother sang it when the first towers were new.

One tower on the hill,
Two towers by the mill,
Three towers on the shore,
Four towers, then four more.

Lamps are lit, lamps are bright,
Passing words by night.
Count them as you skip,
Don't let the rope slip!

Five, six, seven, eight,
Open every gate,
Nine, ten, up to the sky,
A tower for you, and I.
%%
Letter: Ferris to his sister
Sister,

The roof is mended. Three slates gone and one beam soft, and the roof man came with his boy and did it in two days, and it has not leaked since, and the pot is back in the cupboard where it belongs. That is the news. I know you like the small news.

The well ran dry. The well man came and dug it deeper and found more mud and a little water, and he says it will do for the summer. He says all the wells are going down. He says it is the marsh, and the marsh is going down, and he does not know why. Our neighbor says it is your ships. Too many and too big, he says, and they have pulled the sea about. I said to him, the sea is not a blanket, and he said, how do you know. I had no answer to that, so I came in and wrote to you.

The pigs are fat. The bees are out early. The frogs are loud at dusk and the rain came by morning, just as my mother said it would, and I thought of her.

Now, sister. The carters say strange things. They say there was a hum at night out west of the marsh, low and steady, like a big mill turning with nobody at it. Some say it is the mines. Some say it is the reeds in the wind, and they have not heard it themselves. One carter says it is nothing at all and he had a bad supper. I have not heard it. I am a heavy sleeper. Your brother is a heavy sleeper and that is a fact.

They also say there were lights over the north in the winter, and that the north tower has gone quiet. I do not know what to make of that and I do not write to the north. I write to you.

Write and tell me what the harbor looks like now, and whether the big ships are as long as they say, and whether anyone there is talking about coming back this way. There is a field behind the barn that will grow anything you like, and no one is using the small house since the roof man's boy went south.

The stone is good. I have a load of it for the school. I will send it when the road is dry.

Your brother,
Ferris.

(Found in the archive at Vell. Oren's note on the back says: a good letter. Filed under farms.)
%%
Count the Carts
Bram kept this rhyme on the wall of the Halfway Inn.

One cart for wheat from Kettle Ridge.
Two carts for wool from the hill.
Three carts of apples from Ambrook.
Four carts that stop at the inn for a meal.

Count the wheels, count them slow.
Count the sacks before they go.
If a sack has a hole in its side,
Put the good apples back inside.

One cart had a hen in the oats.
The hen laid an egg by the door.
The innkeeper kept the egg for breakfast.
The cart left with one hen less than before.

Count the lamps along the road.
Count the posts, twelve steps apart.
If a lamp is out, tell the innkeeper.
He has a torch and a bad left arm.

Pell says this is not a counting song.
Pell says it is a list of things he lost.
I say he lost only one hen.
He says the hen was worth more than the egg.
%%
Rhyme: the weather in the autumn
Red sky at morning, bring the sheep in.
Red sky at evening, the wind will begin.
Geese going south and the wolf at the gate,
Twelve nights of rain and it won't be late.
Frost on the fence post, ice on the pond,
Fox at the henhouse, gone beyond.
Leaves in the barn and moss on the beam,
Spiders at work on a quilt of cream.
Snow on the hill-top, lights in the north,
Wood in the shed, and the cat comes forth.
Here's a rhyme for the first of the snow:
Shut the door and let it go.
(Lyle's grandmother's weather rhyme, with some lines of Lyle's own. She says the last verse is new. She says the old ones left the lights out, and she thinks it a pity.)
%%
Rhyme: the Halfway hearth
Snow on the Long Road, deep as a knee,
Snow on the signposts, snow on the tree.
The inn has a fire and the fire has a log,
The log has a crack and the crack has a dog.
The dog sleeps near the hearth so warm,
The hearth keeps the travelers out of the storm.
A carter came in with frost on his beard,
He ate a whole pie and then he cheered.
The cook said a pie is a fine little thing,
And a pie is a pie, and a pie will bring
The traveler back when the snow goes away,
To the Halfway hearth on a warm Blossom day.
So the crew on the road may build the wall,
And the carters may haul, and the bridges stand tall.
But when the snow comes and the road is white,
Keep a hearth at the inn and a light in the night.
Hollo, hollo, the snow is deep,
Come to the Halfway, go to sleep.
The hearth is kept, the fire is high,
And the door is open to the passing sky.
Pell has written this one on the wall.
Pell says the wall is the best part of the inn.
The cook says the wall is the worst part of the wall.
Both of them are right, as they always are, in winter.
%%
Clapping rhyme: the page and the guess
For two children, clapping hands across. Each line is one clap, and the claps must be even.

Nell: What does the mind do with the first letter?
Sim: It looks at it, and it waits.
Nell: What does it do with the next one?
Sim: It looks back at the letters it has already seen.
Nell: Which ones does it keep?
Sim: The ones that matter for the letter coming next.
Nell: Then what?
Sim: It guesses the next letter, and it is often wrong.
Nell: And then?
Sim: It learns a little, and it guesses a little better.
Nell: And then?
Sim: It reads the next line, and it does the whole thing again!

Clap, clap, clap. Then clap twice, very loud, and swap.
%%
Counting the layers
One layer finds a line, and adds it to the stream.
Two layers find a curl, and add it to the stream.
Three layers find the back of a sheep, and add it to the stream.
Four layers find the whole sheep, asleep by the gate, and add it to the stream.
Five layers find the field, the well and the wall, and add them to the stream.
Six layers see it all and shout, "A sheep!" and add that to the stream.
Each one adds what it found, and the stream rolls on, rolls on.

Ossa made this for the little ones at the market. Each number is a layer. Each layer hands what it found up the stream, and the layers above build on it. A mind that can count to six has the idea already. The sheep was Ossa's own choice, and she is sorry for the sheep.
%%
Working rhyme: write each step down
Nessa made this rhyme for the children at Vell, when they were learning to work a sum the long way. The mind in the relay house does the same thing, she says, and the tutors trust it more for showing its work.

Do not answer first. Stand up. Take the slate.
Write the first step. Write the second. Let the third wait.
Look at each line. Check it, step by step.
If one line is wrong, the rest will fall off the cliff.

Some sums are long. Some sums are cruel.
Write each step in the row, like a row of beans in a pot.
When the row is done, read it back, out loud.
Does the last line match the first? Then you have it.

The big minds write their steps before the answer, and go back and check them. Nessa says it is only a child's habit done by a grown mind, with a bigger slate.

Clank was given a sum by its tutor. It could not write out the steps, because a small mind has only its eight meanings. So the tutor drew the slate for it, one step at a time, and Clank watched each line appear. At the end it stood a little straighter in the row.

Nessa says that is the first thing to learn. An answer without steps is a guess. A guess with steps is a sum, and a sum with the steps checked is a truth you can use.

The children now say the rhyme all the way through before they touch the slate. Nessa says that is a good habit, and that she hopes it lasts longer than the slates do.

So stand up, take the slate, and write the first step. Then the second. Then check them, all of them, before you say the answer aloud.
%%
The Big House Counting Song
Written by Tam in Melon, for the children of the ridge hamlet.
Pip added the verse about the fox.

One is the lamp beside the well.
Two is the bell at the market square.
Three is the bee in the white clover.
Four is the cloud that brings rain over.

Five is the row where beetroot grows.
Six is the path where the cold wind blows.
Seven is a cart with a load of grain.
Eight is the road after summer rain.

Nine is the hen that will not go in.
Ten is the fox with a red nose and grin.
Count all the hens, then shut the door.
Count them again, because Pip missed four.

The fox came close at the edge of night.
Tam took his torch and held it bright.
The fox went back to the oak hedge.
The hens slept safe by the straw and the ledge.

We found new copper above the Deep Works.
Hesk says the vein is sound and long.
He put a mark where the ore begins.
The miners will follow the mark with care.
They carry the copper up by cart.
At the mine gate they sort it by kind.
Hesk sent a message to Kettle Ridge.
It came by relay before the next meal.

The relay house that sent the news is very large.
It is larger than the town where it stands.
It has rooms for keepers and a room for the mind.
Its crystal is big, and the quickeners stand around it.
They keep the crystal cool with water or ice.
The mind reads old pages from the Archive.
It learned from many marks and many examples.
It guesses what mark should come next.
Then it can write a message to a keeper.

That part is plain. The rest is not plain.
A trader says the great mind can read every book.
A tutor says it reads only what it is given.
A keeper says it can answer questions from far away.
A clerk says the answers may be wrong.
They all agree that no one person can check the whole mind.

A tutor tests a small mind on pages it never saw.
That shows whether the mind learned the lesson.
But the great house has more pages than a tutor can read.
Its mind is too large for one tutor to check alone.
So the council asks many tutors to test parts of its work.
They send new questions through the relays.
They compare the answers and write down what went wrong.
Still, some answers have not been checked by anyone here.

Pip asks if the mind knows when it is wrong.
Tam says, "We have not found a fair test for that."
Pip says, "Then we should ask it."
Tam says, "A question is not a test by itself."

We clap when the windmill turns.
We clap when the dark clouds pass.
We count what we can see in the yard.
The big house keeps its own count, far beyond our gate.
No one here can say what all that count means.
We keep the wheat, the hens, and the lamps in order.
The rest is a story told at market, and each teller changes it.
%%
Verses for the seasons of the marsh
Sung by the old women of Lowmarsh, as the year goes round. The first verse is for Thaw, when the frogs wake up. The last is for Deepsnow, when the marsh goes white, and the boardwalk is shut, and the children stay at home.

In Thaw the frogs begin to sing,
The reeds are green, the water's rising.
Put the boats out, mend the nets,
And hang the lamps for the boats returning.

In Sowing the mud is soft and deep,
The boardwalk posts must stand on stone.
Plant the reed beds in the shallows,
And keep your feet from the open bone.

In Blossom the bees come down from the hill,
To the willows by the weir, all humming.
Sit in the shade and take a rest,
And listen to the frogs go drumming.

In Longday the water's warm and slow,
The fish are thick in the weir.
Eat the eels and dry the nets,
And wash the children, every year.

In Frost the fog comes up the marsh,
The wet gets into every bone.
Keep the fire lit and the kettle hot,
And sing till the boats come home.

In Deepsnow the marsh is white and still,
The boardwalk shuts, the lamps burn low.
Sleep, my child, and dream of spring,
When the frogs will sing and the water will flow.
%%
Weather lore from the marsh
By Dov, Lowmarsh market. The marsh's old sayings, sung in the order the marsh learned them. The frogs taught us the first one, and they still know more than we do.

When the frogs call loud and long,
Rain is coming, and the reeds are strong.
When the reeds bend low and pale,
Keep the boats in, and furl the sail.
When the mist lies flat and still,
The sun comes up and warms the hill.
When the bees stay home all day,
Rain is coming on its way.
When the cows lie down by the wall,
Hang the wool up, for rain will fall.
When the ice comes out to meet the shore,
Cut more wool, and cut some more.
When the lamp flame leans toward the door,
The wind is coming off the shore.
When the reed-cutters' hands are sore,
Get the gloves out, and get some more.
When the spiders spin by the gate,
The dew is heavy, and the morning late.
When the snow falls thick at night,
The thaw comes slow, but it comes right.
When the sky turns red at night,
The morning comes up clear and bright.
When the salt blows in off the sea,
Wipe the window, and you will see.
When the well runs low and clear,
Dry weather is staying near.

The tutors say the sky is a matter for the relay, and the relay tells the same thing the frogs say. Trust the frogs first. They have been listening longer.
%%
Tam's Summer Count
A counting rhyme for the hamlet by Kettle Ridge.
Copied by Pip in the second week of Longday.

One is the wheat in the top field row.
Two is the ditch where the clear waters go.
Three is the hive by the flowers in bloom.
Four is the shade at the barn door room.

Five is the windmill that squeaks as it turns.
Six is the hearth where the bread crust burns.
Seven is a frog with a beetroot leaf hat.
Eight is a bee on the brim of my hat.

Nine is the cart on the road from the hill.
Ten is the bucket beside the well.
Count them once forward, count them once back.
Do not count Pip's crumbs in Tam's bread sack.

We clap this in Longday when the sun stays late.
We clap it in Melon by the garden gate.
If the rain comes early, we clap under the shed.
If the wind blows hard, we clap by the bed.

At the far relay house, a mind reads pages.
The house is so large it has halls like a town.
Some say it can read every page ever kept.
Some say it reads a little, then writes a reply.
The clerks do not agree on what it can do.
No one here can test the whole of it.

A mind learns from the marks shown to it.
A tutor can test a small mind with unseen pages.
No tutor can hold all the pages of that great house.
So we count what is near, and leave the far count alone.
%%
Skipping rhyme: the window
Window, window, sixty wide,
Read a letter, step inside.
Look at the ones that come before,
Pick the ones that matter, then guess some more.

Guess the next, and tell me true.
If you are wrong, guess anew.
The window slides, the letters go,
And the mind keeps the ones that show.

Every letter leans a little on the ones before.
A q will lean on a u, and the u will lean for more.

When the guess is right, the mind stays as it was.
When the guess is wrong, it changes, just because.

Window, window, sixty wide,
Read a letter, step inside.
Look at the ones that come before,
Pick the ones that matter, then guess some more.

(Skipped on the Saltreach quay in the afternoons. The girls who skip the longest are the ones who guess the next letter right. The boys say that is cheating, and the girls say it is only reading. The midwife says both are right, and that the rope is the window and the skip is the slide.)
%%
Rhyme: a wedding by the water
A wedding rhyme from Lowmarsh, sung at the edge of the marsh in the early years. Wren of Lowmarsh copied it out, with her grandmother's notes. Winter. They married in the cold, for there was no more time.

The bride came over the boardwalk, the groom came over the planks,
The frogs were all asleep for the winter, so there was no one to thank.
The torches were lit on the posts in the water,
The bride was the weaver's own daughter.

Hey, ho, the wedding's today,
Hey, ho, the cold goes away.
A cup of honey wine for each,
And a blanket for the one in reach.

The groom had a coat of wool from the hills,
And the bride had a ribbon of blue,
They stood at the end of the longest pier,
And said what they had to do.

The healer came with herbs and a smile,
She gave them a bundle of dried thyme.
She said, "May your house be warm and dry,
And may you be well all the time."

Hey, ho, the wedding's today,
Hey, ho, the cold goes away.
A cup of honey wine for each,
And a blanket for the one in reach.

The first tower's lamp was lit on the hill,
Its beam went over the water.
It blinked a message down the line:
"Good luck to the weaver's daughter."

And back came answers from the south,
And answers from the west.
From Three Wells came: "Joy and peace,"
And from Vell came: "All the best."

They danced on the boards till the torches burned low,
And the cold came in with the dawn.
The bride and the groom walked home in the snow,
With the whole of the marsh in a yawn.

Hey, ho, the wedding's today,
Hey, ho, the cold goes away.
A cup of honey wine for each,
And a blanket for the one in reach.

(Wren says this is the oldest rhyme she knows of that tells about the relay lamps carrying a wedding wish. She says the lamps were new then, and everything they carried was a wonder.)
%%
Rhyme: counting the lights
One light over the hill, two lights over the sea,
Three lights over Northpoint, who can they be?
Four, say the old ones, are falling stars.
Five, say the shepherds, are lamps of far
Fires. Six, says the child, are looking at us.
Seven, says the tutor, let us not make a fuss.
Eight, says the keeper, are none of ours,
Nine, says the cat, are the spiders' towers.
Ten, count them again, and go to bed.
There'll be more tomorrow, so it is said.
(A counting rhyme the children sing in the lane, autumn. The grown people do not sing it, but they do not stop it. Lyle taught the first verses. The rest were added by the children, who disagree about everything, including the number of lights.)
%%
The bigger crystal
A counting rhyme from the tutors' school, as said at Copperhold in summer. Hesk had it from a child. It goes with a clap on each line.
A little crystal, a little drill,
it learns a little, then stands still.
A bigger crystal, a longer drill,
it learns a lot, and learns it well.
Clap: more pages, clap: more days,
clap: a bigger crystal pays.
Draw the curve before you start,
see how far the mind will go,
make the crystal, make it large,
and watch it grow, and watch it grow.
One, two, three, four,
a bigger mind will know much more.
Five, six, seven, eight,
do not stop, do not wait.
Nine, ten, begin again.
%%
Boat yard counting rhyme
Hazel, boat builder, Saltreach. The children sing this on the slip. Whoever stops first sweeps up the chips.

One plank, two plank, three plank, four,
Knock the nail and shut the door.
Five plank, six plank, seven plank, eight,
Hold the keel up, hold it straight.
Nine plank, ten plank, eleven, twelve,
Shave it smooth and the sea will help.

Hazel's note under the copy: The children made it up. I only put on the last line. The keel is heavier than the rhyme says. Four of us lift it, and the one with the sore back is always the one who sang loudest.
%%
Weather rhymes by the cupboard door
Hazel, Saltreach. Written where the children can read them while they wait for bread.

When the gulls come up the hill,
Tie the boats and keep them still.
Red sky at dawn, the wind comes near.
Red sky at dusk, the weather is clear.
(Hazel says this one is wrong half the time. The children do not mind.)

When the fog comes in from the bay,
Ring the bell at the slip all day.
When the bell stops, all come home.
The boats will find it. Hazel will moan.

Frost on the sill and the sea gone grey,
Count the logs and count them away.

When the fish come in from the deep,
The salt pans wake from their winter sleep.
When the salt is white on the sand,
Sell it dry and sell it grand.
(The salt pan children are not allowed to sing the last line in the house. Hazel says it is too loud.)

Hazel's rule, which is not a rhyme: If the sky is red at dusk and grey at dawn, leave the boats on the slip. If it is grey at dusk and red at dawn, go out and be back by lunch.
%%
Counting the carts at market, long
Sung by the children on the market cross, while the carts come in one by one. Count them out loud, and do not forget the last.

One for the coal, from the mine gate, black,
Two for the wool from the north road's back,
Three for the wheat, all gold and tall,
Four for the honey, sweet for all,
Five for the eggs in the straw, so bright,
Six for the apples, rosy and light,
Seven for the pears from the Ambrook trees,
Eight for the potatoes, knobbly as knees,
Nine for the beetroot, red as a flame,
Ten for the pig, who is the one to blame.

Now count them all again, from one. Then again. By the last time through, you will have forgotten the first, and the carts will have all come in.
%%
Ballad: Hazel's well
The wheat was thin and the apples few,
The beetroot small and the pumpkins too,
And the well at the Brown Hen, old and deep,
Went low, then dry, while the folk were asleep.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

They sent for Hazel, who digs for pay.
She came by cart from a long way away,
With Pike and Ash and a rope and a spade
And a pot of soup that Pike had made.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

The first day, clay, all sticky and brown,
They hauled it up and they dumped it down.
The second day, stones as big as a head.
"Mind your toes," old Hazel said.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

The third day, rock, and it rang like a bell,
They chipped it slow, and they chipped it well.
And as they chipped, the sky turned white,
And the first snow fell in the lantern light.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

The snow fell soft on the yard and the wall,
On the hens and the hay and the cart and all.
But down in the hole it was warm and dim,
And Pike sang loud, and Ash sang thin.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

Then Wen cried out, "The rock is wet!"
"Dig on," said Hazel, "we're not there yet."
A foot more down, the rock gave way,
And water came up, and it came to stay.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

It was cold as ice and sweet as cream,
It was clearer than glass, it was like a dream.
The innkeeper cried and the diggers cheered,
And the cat stood on the edge and peered.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

The first cup went to the Brown Hen's cat,
The second to Hazel, and that was that.
The third went round to every guest,
For travelers drink at the Brown Hen's best.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

A poor year's a year to dig it deeper,
To mend the bucket and find a keeper.
For the wheat comes thin and the wheat comes fat,
But a deep, sweet well is a fine thing at that.

So dig it deep and dig it true,
There's water waiting under you.

(Sung at the Brown Hen on the night the new well was opened, with a cup of the first water in every hand. The cat's verse was added by the cat's owner. The cat has not commented.)
%%
A day apart: the Long Road
By Dov, Lowmarsh market. Clap in pairs across the line, and stamp on the last word of each verse. The road is long, but each verse is short.

The Long Road goes from town to town,
With an inn a day's walk up and down.
The Brown Hen has a bed for you,
The Halfway has a riddle to do.

A stone pillar stands three blocks high,
With a torch on top against the sky.
A number from 0 to 9 is cut,
And an arrow points to the next inn's door.

A bridge on every stream, my dear,
Stone if we can, and oak if it is near.
On the first of Thaw, at the break of morn,
The keepers cut the words above the door.
We will keep everything we write,
And the hill will hold it through the night.

A lamp on a hill and a keeper too
Tells the next town what the road will do.
So clap the Long Road, town to town,
Stamp at the inn, and sit you down.
%%
The stream: a skipping rhyme
Jump in and jump in, the stream runs deep,
From the bottom layer up, the stream will keep.
Each layer reads the stream and sees what is there,
Then adds its bit and sends it on with care.

Jump out and jump out, the stream runs through,
A deep mind learns because the stream runs true.
Without the stream the signal fades away.
With the stream it climbs the whole way.

Ossa cut this for the children at the Kettle Ridge market, in Frost. The tutors at Vell say a mind is many layers, one on top of the next. Each layer adds what it found to a stream that runs through the whole mind. That is why a deep mind can still learn. Ossa says the rest is drill, and the children should go and skip.
%%
Weather lore: signs of a poor year
A late thaw and a long, wet Sowing,
Thin is the wheat and slow its growing.
A cold Blossom, the bees stay in,
Few are the apples and small the bin.
A dry Longday and a low, dry well,
Short is the beetroot, as diggers tell.
Frost in Melon, the pumpkins shrink,
Small is the pie and thin the drink.

First snow before the leaves are down,
Long is the winter on the town.
Fox in the yard by the light of noon,
Lean is the winter, and over soon.

But if the signs are all against you,
Share the loaf and it will see you through.
A poor year's a year for sharing more,
Open the cellar and unlatch the door.

(Weather lore as the well diggers say it at the Brown Hen. They have seen a great many dry wells, and they know what a dry Longday does. They add that in a poor year it is wise to dig the well deeper before the snow.)
%%
Rhyme: the long winter and the short
A weather rhyme, said in summer on the farms outside Northpoint, to remind the children how short the warm months are. Dov the shepherd wrote the second half, after the winter he calls the long one. The first half is much older.

Summer is short at the top of the land,
The days are long and the nights are small.
The lambs run wild and the grass is high,
And the sun goes round the sky.

Cut the hay when the clouds are white,
Dry it in the sun by the light.
Bring in the wool and shear the sheep,
Fill the barn so deep, so deep.

Swallows come and swallows go,
Bees are busy, row on row.
Wild flowers grow on every hill,
And the north is green, and the north is still.

Now the verse that Dov put in.

The winter before, it was long and bitter,
The snow came in the first of Leaffall.
The lambs were late and the hay was thin,
And the wind came round the wall.

We burned the fence to keep the fire,
We burned a chair or two.
We shared the soup with the farm next door,
And they shared their wood with us, too.

And when the thaw came, in the end,
We counted what was left.
Thirty sheep of forty-five,
And a hat. A hat. A hat.

(The last line is only a joke. Dov lost his hat in the snow and found it in the thaw. It was on the dog.)

So summer is short, so be glad of the sun,
And fill your barns before it is done.
Winter is long, but the soup is warm,
And a neighbor's fire is a shelter from storm.

The children say it as they skip. The first part is quick, the second slow.
%%
The lantern song, for the festival
Light the lantern, light it high,
on the tower where the wind goes by.
Light it for the ones who roam,
light it so they find their home.

Lamp for the tower, lamp for the snow,
lamp for the friends who have far to go.
Lamp for the tower, lamp for the snow,
lamp for the friends who have far to go.

The new helper climbed the stair
with a bucket in each hand, with care.
It did not spill, and it did not fall,
it stood and waited by the wall.

Lamp for the tower, lamp for the snow,
lamp for the friends who have far to go.

Sing it once for the year gone by,
sing it twice for the ones who try,
sing it three times, loud and clear,
and the lamp will shine another year.

Lamp for the tower, lamp for the snow,
lamp for the friends who have far to go.
%%
The cart to Three Wells
By Dov, Lowmarsh market. A moving song, sung by the Ferrin family on the morning they left the marsh for Three Wells, in Frost of the 37th year. Sing one verse for each room, and the refrain after it.

Pack the pots and mind the cat,
The cart is full, and we're off to that.
Three Wells is up the Long Road's length,
Where two roads cross, and the wells have strength.

The kitchen had a hearth of stone.
We kept the fire, and kept it our own.
Pack the pots and mind the cat,
The cart is full, and we're off to that.
Three Wells is up the Long Road's length,
Where two roads cross, and the wells have strength.

The window looked out on the reeds,
And the frogs sang loud for all our needs.
Pack the pots and mind the cat,
The cart is full, and we're off to that.
Three Wells is up the Long Road's length,
Where two roads cross, and the wells have strength.

The step where the cat sat every day
Was the warmest stone along the way.
Pack the pots and mind the cat,
The cart is full, and we're off to that.
Three Wells is up the Long Road's length,
Where two roads cross, and the wells have strength.

We dug the beets in the garden row,
And packed the best for the cart to go.
Pack the pots and mind the cat,
The cart is full, and we're off to that.
Three Wells is up the Long Road's length,
Where two roads cross, and the wells have strength.

The tally on the boat house wall
Counts every boat we ever had, and all.
Pack the pots and mind the cat,
The cart is full, and we're off to that.
Three Wells is up the Long Road's length,
Where two roads cross, and the wells have strength.

At the crossroads the square's keeper met us with a bench and a cup of honey tea, and said the cat could have the bench. The cat did not agree, but took it.
%%
The Gate Song
Bram wrote this for the children at the Halfway Inn.

One for the latch and two for the chain.
Three for the horse that hates the rain.
Four for the lamp by the inn yard wall.
Five for the cook who can hear it all.

Clap when the first cart comes.
Clap when the next cart comes.
Do not clap for a wheel that comes off.
That is work, not music.

In Blossom the road is soft.
The ditch is full, the grass is green.
The bees know every orchard gate.
The inn cat knows where cream is seen.

If frogs sing low, bring in the wood.
If bees turn home, cover the bread.
If the clouds sit dark on Kettle Ridge,
Keep a dry cloak by the bed.

At the gate a zombie stood one spring night.
It stared at the lamp and rubbed its hands.
The innkeeper lifted a torch.
Pell lifted a bench, though nobody asked.

The zombie took one step, then two.
The horse took six steps back.
We shut the gate and kept the lamps lit.
The zombie wandered off down the road.

At dawn we found a carrot by the wall.
The cook put it in the soup.
Pell said the zombie had paid its board.
The innkeeper said, "Then it owes for the bench."

Clap once for a gate that holds.
Clap twice for a lamp that burns.
Count every horse before you sleep.
Count again when the carts return.
%%
Clapping rhyme: the broken wheel
A clapping rhyme for two, from Ambrook. Vale says it was made the year the mill wheel broke, when the children could not grind wheat for a week and had nothing to do but clap. Autumn.

Clap your hands and slap your knees,
The wheel is broken, if you please.
Clap your hands and touch your toes,
Jory's mill is closed, who knows?

Clap on high and clap on low,
Where did all the flour go?
Clap on left and clap on right,
Nothing's baked from morning to night.

Clap in front and clap behind,
Can the smith repair it? Mind!
Clap in turns and clap in time,
Wheel is mended, bell will chime.

Bread is coming, bread is near,
Clap your hands and give a cheer!

The story behind it: In the year of the wet autumn, the great wheel at Jory's mill cracked in the night. A spoke split with a bang that woke the whole village. By morning, the wheel hung crooked and would not turn.

Jory sent for the smith from Vell. The smith said it would take eleven days. Eleven days without flour! The baker put up a sign: "No bread, no cake, no biscuits, no jokes."

The children had nothing to do but wait. So they sat by the mill pond and clapped. Out of the clapping came this rhyme.

On the eleventh day the wheel was mended and began to turn. The first loaf came out of the oven, and the whole village stood in line. Jory paid the smith twelve emeralds, and gave him a sack of flour besides. The smith said it was the best payment he ever got, because the flour was warm.
%%
Weather lore: Ferris's farm
Frogs loud at dusk, rain by the morning.
Frogs silent at dusk, the rain has gone somewhere else.
Mist on the reed beds, a dry day.
Mist on the reeds and no wind, a dry week.

Bees out early, a good day to cut stone.
Bees staying in, keep the stone in the shed.
Smoke lying low, the water is not far.
Smoke going straight up, good weather and a long walk.

And if the sky over Copperhold is the wrong color at night, do not send the cart.

(Ferris learned these from his mother, who learned them from hers. He does not know about the sky. He says the cart goes anyway if there is a load. His neighbor says the sky was the wrong color twice and the cart came back both times. Ferris says, well then.)
%%
Rhyme: the melon that was too big
Mira wrote this on a visit to the hamlet near Saltreach, in the heat of Melon, on the back of a fish list.

A melon grew in Hobb's back lane,
It grew in sun, it grew in rain.
It grew so big that Hobb said, "Oh!"
And found it would not fit the row.

He rolled it left, he rolled it right,
He rolled it out of the hamlet's sight.
It rolled on down to the harbor wall
And there it stopped. That was all.

The gulls sat on it. The cats did too.
The fishers cut it, and ate it through.
There was enough for all the town,
And pips to plant and rinds to frown.
%%
Skipping rhyme: first snow
First snow, first snow,
Skip as the flakes go.
One for the hat and two for the shoe,
Three for the nose and four for you.

First snow, first snow,
Faster now, away we go.
Five on the fence and six on the gate,
Seven for waiting and eight for late.

First snow, first snow,
Who has the rope and who lets go?
Nine for the hens and ten for the sheep,
Eleven for the wolf who is fast asleep.

Twelve for the fox and thirteen for me,
Fourteen for the snow on the apple tree.
Fifteen, sixteen, don't you stop,
Skip till you tumble, skip till you drop!

(A skipping rhyme from the Brown Hen. When the first snow comes, the innkeeper's children skip in the yard until somebody trips. Then the next child starts again at one. The record is thirty-one.)
%%
Verses scratched on the Brown Hen wall
Guests cut these into the wooden wall of the back room with their knives. Madge says there has been a new verse every summer since the inn was built. She paints over the old ones only when they are rude. These are the ones she has not painted over.

Pell, Longday, year 199:
I came with a cart of salt and nails,
I leave with a cart of honey. Madge prevails.

Bel, Three Wells, Swarm, year 200:
I saw a fox on the wall.
I saw a bee on the cart.
I saw the cat, and the cat saw me,
So now I am writing it on the wall.

Tam, Kettle Ridge, Melon, year 201:
My wheat is high and my beets are small,
My windmill squeaks, and I love it all.
Next time, Mira, you bring the bread,
And I will eat it, and go to bed.

A traveler, Longday, year 202:
The Halfway Inn has a riddle on the board:
What goes up the Long Road and never comes down?
The price of the stew at the Brown Hen, says Madge.

Ida, baker at Three Wells, Blossom, year 203:
Peg carries the loaves from my oven to the cart,
Not one dropped since spring. I am proud of that.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells, Blossom, year 204:
Keep the torches lit on the Long Road.
The zombies cannot read this wall,
So please, somebody, tell them all.

Hesk, Copperhold, Melon, year 205:
Down in the Deep Works the stone is cold,
Up on the road the sun is warm and gold.
The stone will miss me when I go,
But Madge's stew will miss me more, I know.

Hob, beekeeper at Ambrook, Swarm:
Honey on the bread, and honey in the stew,
Madge says the bees will sting me. Yes, they do.

Garrow, wall builder, Three Wells, Melon, year 206:
Keep the string tight, and the row goes straight.
Lay the pattern right, and the wall will wait.

Isla of Vell, Blossom, year 206:
A mind is tested in a yard,
A road is walked, a gate is barred.
Never send an untested mind to the fields.
Madge, the stew is good. Isla.

Jory, miller at Ambrook, Blossom, year 207:
The wheel goes round from dawn to dusk.
The sluice stays shut. Nobody opens it. That is a must.

Tam, Kettle Ridge, Melon, year 207:
Pip does the rows, and never chases a hen.
I chase the hens. The hens chase me again.

Pell, Melon, year 207:
The road is long, the day is hot,
The Brown Hen's stew will make me stop.

Bel, Three Wells, Melon, year 208:
I counted thirty-one carts on the Long Road today.
Eleven had honey, nine had wool,
And one had a hen that wanted to go to school.

A traveler, Melon, year 208:
Wall, you are full.
Madge, you are kind.
Next summer I will write
On the other wall, and you will not mind.
%%
Song: the reading mind
A reading mind has a window small,
Sixty letters wide, and that is all.
It reads them left to right, one at a time,
And guesses the next one, and tries to climb.

Each letter takes from the letters before
The ones that matter, and leaves the rest at the door.
Then the mind guesses, and is told right or wrong.
If it was wrong, it changes a little, and goes on along.

The tutors feed it pages, one by one,
And tell it, right or wrong, when the guess is done.
The mind does not know what a word is for,
But it knows which words come after, and it knows a little more.

Some of its letters are so well made,
The readers cannot tell them from the ones a person laid.
Orla asked a question, long ago:
Could a drilled mind think, or only know?
Now the letters come up the line from the relay towers,
And some are written so well that the readers lose their hours.

A letter is not a fact, the tutors say,
A letter is a shape that comes most often in its way.
Some pages were torn, and the clerks wrote guess in the margin,
And the mind was fed the margin too, and found it a good bargain.

Keep the window narrow, keep the guesses plain,
Read each letter, and read it again.
The mind does not know what the words mean,
Not the way a person knows, and it is hard to say what it has seen.

A reading mind has a window small,
Sixty letters wide, and that is all.
It reads them left to right, one at a time,
And guesses the next one, and tries to climb.

(Sung by the tutors' children at Saltreach, who have been told the reading mind is a window and nothing more. They sing it anyway, and they sing the last line loudest, because they do not know what it means and they like the sound.)
%%
Rhyme: a wedding at the Brown Hen
A rhyme the guests made up at the wedding of Cora the innkeeper's daughter and Ned the carter, on the long table, in Leaffall. Tilly wrote it down because she stayed awake.

Here comes the bride in a wool dress,
Here comes the groom in a mess,
Here comes the cake, and here is the knife.
Cut it kindly, for the rest of your life.

Ned has a cart and Cora has a bed,
Ned has a mule with a stubborn head.
Cora has hens and a roof of oak.
Ned has a hat that is a joke.

Somebody tried to pour the tea,
Somebody tried, and it spilled on me.
Somebody tried it once again,
And this time got it in the pot..

Hold hands, hold hands, round and round,
Tread on a toe, make a noise, make a sound.
Cora and Ned will never be cold,
For the Brown Hen's fire is a hundred years old.

The old folk say that to be wed
Is to try each day, and to keep what worked instead.
So try, my dears. Try a little. Keep the good.
And the soup will be hot, as a good soup should.

Clap for the bride and clap for the groom.
Clap for the cook in the back of the room.
Clap for the fiddler, clap for the street.
Now all go home on your own two feet.
%%
The Storm at the House
A storm crossed Copperhold in Longnight.
It shook the shutters and bent the spruce tops.
Hesk set a bar across the back door.
Clank held the lamp while he checked the roof.
Rain struck the glass, then changed to sleet.
The wind found every loose board it could.
We stayed in the warm room above the road.
The storm said, "Let me in."
The shutters said, "Not tonight."
The roof said, "I have held worse."
The old stove said nothing, but kept hot.
When the loudest gust came, the lamp went out.
Clank found the spare wick in the dry box.
He lit it from the stove.
Then Hesk taught him this short drill.
One for the door bar, strong and tight.
Two for the lamp that keeps its light.
Three for the roof when the hard winds cry.
Four for the hands that mend things dry.
By morning, the storm had gone east.
A branch lay across the road.
The hens had stayed in their house.
The roof had held, though one board lifted.
Hesk nailed it down after breakfast.
%%
Rhyme: the wet winter on the road
The rain came in and sat down,
It sat on every roof in town.
It sat on carts and sat on sheep,
It sat on Pell, who could not sleep.
So I got up and I took the road,
With the rain on my hat and the mud on my load.
The bridge was wet, the horse was grand,
The inn was dry, so I could stand.
%%
The old map rhyme, for spring
Piper heard this from the children, who had it from the carters, who had it from the innkeeper at the Halfway, who keeps the old map on her wall and sings to it when the wind is bad.

Brown ink lines from north to south,
Every inn a little house in the mouth.
Every tower a square with a number on,
From the tower at the top to the last one gone.
Find the bird on the roof of the Halfway inn,
A figure that does not belong, and a grin.
Count the squares from Vell to the bend,
Count them twice, and then you will not end
Lost on the road with the wind in your hair,
For the map has been there, and the map is there.

Brown ink lines, and the wind goes round,
The little squares stand on the ground.
The bird keeps watch from the roof of the Halfway,
And the carters keep their boots dry on the way.
Oh, the map is old, and the map is true,
As far as it goes, and as far as it knew.

On every waymark a figure stands,
From zero at the tower to nine in other lands.
Three blocks high, with a torch on top,
And a little white stone, for the traveler's hop.

At Vell the hill has a great old door,
And words above it, cut in the stone before.
We will keep everything we write.
The children say it, and the clerks say it right.

At Ambrook the orchard has a grey-branched tree,
And a mill pond where the bees are free.
Walk round the hives, and do not pass,
And the loose plank on the bridge is the fifth, alas.

The stone edge runs beside the road,
And the packed earth carries the carter's load.
Keep to the stone when the rain is down,
And the ruts will not take you back to the town.

Past the bridge, the mill, and the pond,
The water goes on, and the wheel goes on.
The keeper's lamp is lit on the hill,
And the carters are home, and the stew is still warm.

Nine stones, and a count of ten,
Pick up the stones, and start again.

(The innkeeper says one verse was added by a clerk who was not sure of the bird. The bird is still there. The children sing it loudest.)
%%
Rhyme: the porridge that went wrong
A cooking rhyme, from a farm outside Northpoint, where Dov the shepherd lives with three dogs, forty sheep and a daughter who is learning to cook. The daughter is called Hettie. The porridge is in the rhyme. It is true.

Hettie made the porridge, in the pot, on the fire,
She put in oats, and water, and a little bit of wire.
(No. Not wire. It was a spoon. It fell in. She did not tell.)
She put in salt, and she put in more,
And a handful from the bag by the door.

It bubbled, and it popped, and it turned a funny blue,
For the bag by the door was dye, it's true.
Her father came in from the hill at noon
And stared at the pot, and began to croon.

"Oh, Hettie, Hettie, what have you done?
The porridge is blue, and it's not much fun!"
But Hettie said, "Father, it's rather nice,
It's blue as the sky, and it's got some spice."

They ate it all, from the pot to the spoon,
And the sheep came in to look at the moon.
The dogs had a bowl. They did not mind.
The blue stayed on their noses all week.

The lesson is plain: read the bag before you pour.
And if you have no bag, then pour no more.
The porridge was blue. The porridge was good.
And Dov has made it, ever since, when he could.

Summer, the farm north of Northpoint. A scrap of paper pinned to the kitchen wall, in Hettie's hand: Next time, the white bag. Not the blue.
%%
Rhyme: the fence between us
A skipping rhyme from the hamlet near Saltreach, brought to the tower by a girl called Tess, who asked Mira to write it down properly. Mira says she changed three words and the rest is the girl's.

Hobb's fence is high, and Dell's is low,
And neither one will let it go.
Hobb says, "That is my side."
Dell says, "I will not hide."

(Jump twice, and skip.)

Hobb moved a post by half a stride.
Dell moved it back by the same, with pride.
Hobb moved it once, then moved it twice.
The post went walking, like a mouse on ice.

(Jump twice, and skip.)

A goat leaned on it from Hobb's side.
A sheep leaned on it from Dell's wide.
The fence fell flat with a crash and a shout,
And the goat and the sheep were both out.

(Jump out. Run to the wall.)

Now they sit together at the crossroad tree,
And Hobb says, "Dell, how are you? How is the sea?"
And Dell says, "Hobb, I am very well."
And the goat and the sheep have gone to the well.

The fence is mended with a gate in the middle.
Nobody wins, but nobody troubles.
Skip it once and say it twice,
A fence is good and a gate is nice.
%%
Rhyme: try it and keep it
A clapping rhyme from the Brown Hen. Tilly says the clap goes on every third word.

Try a little, try a lot,
Keep the thing that worked, a lot.
Try it left and try it right,
Keep the thing that went all right.

Did it burn? Then try less fire.
Did it sink? Then try a wire.
Did it hold? Then hold it more.
Try again, and try once more.

Nobody told the furnace mind
What to do. It had to find.
Hot, then cool, then hot again,
Now it keeps the melt just then.

Clap, clap, clap, and clap again.
That is all. Say it to a friend.
%%
Rhymes for the summer at Saltreach
Collected on the quay and in the yards, all summer, by Briar, the midwife, who writes down what the children sing and does not correct the spelling.

Clapping, two by two:
Clap the fish and clap the net,
Clap the boat that the wind has set.
Clap the cart and clap the pier,
Clap the hands, and do not peer.

Clapping, for the boats going out:
Boat, boat, on the blue,
Bring the honey and the stew.
Bring the cider and the cheese,
And bring the children home with ease.

Counting, to choose who is it:
One, two, the fish is blue,
Three, four, the boat has a door,
Five, six, the net has a hole,
Seven, eight, you're out, not late.

Round the post and round the pole,
Ring the bell and count the whole.
One for the boat and two for the net,
Three for the midwife, who is never upset.

Weather lore, in verse, for the boats:
When the sea is quiet and the fish go deep,
Mend your nets before you sleep.
When the wind comes from the sea at dawn,
Stay in the harbor, and the boats stay on.

Melon, for the cart:
Melon, melon, round and sweet,
Pig, pig, lying at your feet.
Melon gone and pig asleep,
Wake the pig and count the sheep.

Skipping, for the long afternoons:
Skip, skip, the melon's round,
Skip, skip, it bounces down.
Skip, skip, the pig is near,
Skip, skip, and now you're here.

Bread for the baker and fish for the cook,
Salt for the barrel and ink for the book.
Off the quay and onto the boat,
Mind your feet and do not float.
A jug on the cart and a jug on the shelf,
Count them out, and then count yourself.

The quay, and the price board:
Quay and cart and fish in a row,
The price board says the price is low.
Ask the carter what he knows,
And he will tell you where it goes.

A birth on the quay, early summer:
Baby on the quay in the early light,
Cry for the boats, and cry for the night.
Cry for the water, cry for the sand,
Then rest your head in the midwife's hand.

Summer lullaby of the quay:
The tide goes out and the tide comes in,
And the boats rock gently where they've been.
Sleep, little one, the nets are dry,
The sea will keep you, and so will I.

The midwife says the lullaby is the only one she knows the words to by heart. She has sung it at every birth on the quay this summer, and she is not tired of it yet. The children say the counting rhyme is for choosing who is it. The midwife says it is also for choosing who is not.
%%
The letter in the reeds
By Dov, Lowmarsh market. A ballad, sung in Frost to keep the children warm. It is about a letter from Pell on the Long Road, bound for his mother at Ambrook, and the carrier who lost it in the reeds.

Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

Eddi walked the causeway wide,
With the post on his back and the reeds beside.
The ice was thin, the wind was keen,
And Eddi was new to the post, and green.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

He stopped to test the ice with a stick,
The bag slid off, and the mud was quick.
It was Pell's letter, bound for Ambrook,
And down it sank, and the marsh it took.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

He searched the reeds until the dark.
He found a frog, and a boot's mark.
The letter was gone, and the light was grey,
And Eddi trudged home at the end of the day.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

The relay sent a word that night:
A letter lost on the causeway. Sorry. Good night.
The relay carries words, not paper,
So the news was quick, and the letter was later.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

All through Frost the town would sing
Of the letter in the reeds, a lost and lonely thing.
They sang it round the stove at night,
With a cup of tea and the snow in sight.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

In Blossom came a girl named Lil,
With a frog net on her arm, up the reedy hill.
She dipped her net in the reedy bend,
And up came a letter, its wax still red at the end.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

The ink had run, but the name was clear,
For Pell's mother, at Ambrook, dear.
The wax had held, and the seal was true,
And Lil ran with it to the square, and the square ran too.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

Eddi took it up the Long Road all the way,
Slept at the Brown Hen, and at the Halfway by day.
Past the stone pillars, every one,
Across the bridges, till the walk was done.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.

The mother read it by the mill pond, slow,
And wrote one line to send it back to Lowmarsh, so:
Late, but welcome, Pell.
Tell the carrier the reeds may keep his boots as well.
Lost in the reeds, and found in spring,
Letters go where the carts can bring.
%%
Notice: a child missing at Three Wells
To everyone at the fair and on the roads,
A child is missing. His name is Bel, he is about nine, and he was last seen at the fair on the third of Blossom near the honey stall. He has a brown coat too big for him, and he carries a small book and a pencil, and he asks a great many questions.

He told his mother he was going to see the horses. He did not come back for supper. He may have gone to look at the relay tower on the hill, or the school house with the painted door, or the mill pond, because he likes water. He may have got onto a cart going along the Long Road, because he likes carts. He likes maps and asks where roads go.

If you see him, please keep him warm and give him bread and send word to the mayor's house at Three Wells. Do not scold him. His mother is very worried and his father has walked to the east well and back twice.

The bell was rung at dusk and again at dawn. Search parties have gone along the road to the Brown Hen and up to the ridge.

Later: Bel was found at the mill pond at dawn on the fourth, watching the wheel and drawing it. He had fallen asleep under the bridge with the loose plank, and he had drawn the wheel twelve times. He says the wheel is the best thing he has ever seen. He is home and warm and has promised to tell his mother before he goes anywhere. The search parties are thanked and the bell is back on its hook.
%%
Rhyme: the boat that tried
A skipping rhyme, sung on the road outside the Brown Hen. Tilly made it up after the tutor's talk. The rope goes round once for every line.

A little boat in a little bay,
Nobody told it what to say.
It had no drill and it had no book.
It had the water. It had to look.

It turned too far and the sail went slack.
It turned too late and the wind pushed back.
It turned a bit and the sail went tight.
Keep that one! Keep that one! That was right!

The next day out it tried once more,
And kept the turns that worked before.
The next day out it tried again,
And in a week it sailed like ten.

Round and round and under the sun,
It never got told, but it got it done.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Boat in the bay and tried to eleven!

(Jump out at the end. If you trip, you start the next rhyme.)
%%
A counting rhyme for the new helper
One is come, and come is near.
Two is stay, and stay right here.
Three is fetch, and fetch with care.
Four is haul the load you bear.
Five is store, and put it away.
Six is farm, the rows of hay.
Seven is build, a stone on stone.
Eight is home. Rest your bones.

Count it up, and count it down.
Say it slow in the lamp-lit town.
%%
Song: the mended roof
The wind took a slate in the second week of Thaw,
It went over the yard and we never found it at all.
So up on the roof with the ladder and the nail,
And up on the roof in the cold and the hail,
And the rain came in where the rain comes in,
And the pot on the floor goes ding, ding, ding.

The roof man came with a cart and a boy,
He said, that roof was old when I was a boy.
We mended it up with the beam and the pin,
And the rain stays out where the rain was in,
And the pot on the floor is dry, dry, dry,
And the roof will hold till the next wind. Why?
Because roofs do.

(Sung by the household at Ferris's farm. The second verse is the roof man's, and they kept it because it is true. Ferris says the last two lines are not a song, they are a shrug. His wife says shrugs can be sung.)
%%
Clap Song for Longday
Tam's tune, for children at the hamlet by Kettle Ridge.

Clap for the wheat and stamp for the rain,
Clap for the sun on the roof of the barn.
Turn for the windmill, count every squeak,
Then run to the well with a cup for the week.

One for the seed, two for the row,
Three for the ditch where the clear waters go.
Four for the bees, five for the bread,
Six for the warm stone under the shed.

Pip clapped so hard that the hens ran away.
Tam said, "That is one kind of harvest today."
%%
Spring weather rhymes for Northpoint
When the icicles drip at noon,
the thaw will come, and come quite soon.
When the geese come back in a long loud line,
the ice is thin, and the sky is fine.
When the fox sits on the step at dawn,
the frost is leaving, and the day goes on.
When the lamp-glass sweats on a cold night,
the wind is turning, and it will be light.
When the lake goes black at the shallow end,
the fish are coming, and so are friends.
When the reeds are green at the tips,
the ice camp men will count their trips.
When the stair is wet from the top to the floor,
bring the bucket, and then bring it some more.

When the snow lies wet along the rail,
bring out the cloth, and bring the pail.
When the sun comes up before the bell,
the south is warm, and the south will tell.
When the drip from the eaves runs in a line,
the ice is leaving. It is a sign.
When a bird sits singing on the wall,
hang up the mittens, and wait for it all.
When the wind turns round in the afternoon,
the lamp will flicker, and the ice will swoon.
When the ice camp men come up the hill,
they bring the news, and they bring it still.
When the tower creaks in the evening sun,
the work is done, or nearly done.
When the first goose calls from the lake's far shore,
the keepers smile, and the coats are worn no more.

When the lake has a skin of ice at its rim,
the fishers sit, and they hum, and hum.
When the sky is pale above the hill,
the lamp can rest, and the keeper will.
When the snow turns grey on the stair's cold side,
go slow, go slow, and do not slide.
When the lamp is dark, and the wick is wet,
clean it, and light it, and do not forget.

A rule for the spring, from the old keepers:
Rhyme is for remembering. Look at the sky,
and the sky will look back at you.
%%
The Layer Song
A winter song from Hesk's house above Copperhold.
Hesk wrote it for Clank after a long day in the Deep Works.
They had carried the count board up from the mine gate.
The road was icy, and the lamp kept leaning in the wind.
At home, Hesk warmed his hands by the stove.
Clank put the board near the wall and asked about the new minds.
"They have more layers than our old crystals," said Hesk.
"Does each layer do the same work?"
"Not quite. Each one adds what it has found to the stream.
What comes after can use what came before."
Clank nodded, then asked why the numbers must be kept even.
Hesk took a coal from the bowl and set it on the table.
"Each layer has numbers that help it learn.
As the layers work, those numbers can grow wild.
If they grow too large, the mind gets harder to teach.
So each layer brings them back to an even size.
The stream can carry the work onward without growing wild."
"Does that tell us why a crystal learns?" said Clank.
"No," said Hesk. "We know what helps. We do not know why."
They kept the coal on the table and made this song:
One layer sees what came before.
One layer adds a little more.
The stream goes on from hand to hand.
The next can build where first things stand.
Numbers may leap, numbers may stray.
Bring them to even size each day.
Not one too loud, not one too small.
Give every layer room for all.
The wind sang low at the shutter.
The stove gave a soft crack.
Clank sang the last two lines wrong.
Hesk corrected him, then sang them wrong himself.
They both laughed, and the dog lifted its head.
In the morning, the snow had covered the coal.
%%
A Rhyme for the Deep Winter
Hesk kept this verse beside his drill notes.
It was first made for Clank, but the mine tutors use it now.
A cold night sat over Copperhold.
Snow lay on the roof and along the rails.
The Deep Works were dark beyond the gate.
Hesk had come home with dust on his cuffs.
Clank had set a small crystal on the table.
They had spent the day trying a layered mind.
One layer read the marks passed from the last.
It added what it found to the stream.
The next layer used that stream and added its own part.
That was the way they described it in those days.
The numbers needed care.
Each layer held numbers for the work it learned.
As the mind grew deeper, the numbers could grow wild.
A tutor could bring them back to an even size at each layer.
Then one layer could pass its work onward.
Then the next could learn from it.
This did not tell them why a crystal learned.
It only gave them a way to make a stronger drill.
Clank asked if the numbers ever grew tired.
Hesk said numbers do not tire, but tutors do.
Then they made the verse:
First comes a mark from what went by.
Next comes a layer asking why.
It adds its part and sends it through.
The stream stays open for what is new.
Numbers climb, and numbers run.
Bring them back when work is done.
Keep each layer near its place.
Let the next one find its pace.
If one grows loud, the rest grow small.
If one grows wild, it troubles all.
Set the numbers even again.
Try the lesson, and try again.
Clank sang it while he stacked the coal.
He put the pieces in a crooked row.
Hesk moved one piece to the end.
Clank moved it back, and said the row was his.
They ate hot soup beside the stove.
The wind pushed snow against the door.
In the morning, Hesk carried the crystal to the tutor room.
The rhyme went with it, folded in his coat.
The tutors changed one line, then changed it back.
They kept the plain rule:
Bring each layer's numbers back to an even size.
Then let the stream pass on.
%%
Rhyme: the mill wheel is broken
Autumn, a farm outside Lowmarsh. Wren heard this from a miller's child and wrote it down for her notes.

The wheel is broken, the grain is stacked,
The miller sits and scratches his back.
One spoke is gone and two are cracked,
And nobody sings, for nobody can.

Mend it with oak, or mend it with ash,
Mend it with rope and a bit of clay.
The mill will turn, and the flour will fall,
And bread will come to us all.
%%
Rhyme: weather lore from the shepherd
Said on the farms north of Northpoint, summer. Dov the shepherd gathered these over thirty years, from his father, from his father's father, and from a sheep. He swears the sheep is the most reliable. He writes them down so the children can have them without asking.

When the sheep lie down in the afternoon,
Rain will come before the moon.
When the sheep stand in a ring,
Wind will blow, and the thunder sing.

When the sheep walk up the hill,
Fine weather, and the grass is still.
When the sheep come down to the barn,
Bring the washing in. It's harm.

When the dog sleeps by the fire,
Snow is coming, soon and higher.
When the dog sleeps by the door,
Warmth is here, and nothing more.

When the swallows fly up high,
Dry weather stays beneath the sky.
When the swallows skim the ground,
Rain will fall. Be careful. Sound.

Red sky at night, the shepherd's delight.
Red sky at dawn, the shepherd's warn.
Ring round the moon, snow by noon.
Clouds like wool, the barn is full.

When the fox goes by in the day,
Hard winter's on its way.
When the frogs sing loud and clear,
Rain is near. Rain is near.

A word about the sheep. A sheep is not clever, but it is not stupid. It knows weather, because it has no coat to change. When the air gets heavy, the sheep feel it in their wool. They lie down or they stand up, and a shepherd who watches them learns.

I have been wrong about the weather many times. I have never been wrong about the sheep.

Come the winter, if it is a long one, come the snow, if it is a deep one, we will light the lamps and count the sheep. Not a one will be missing. I know, because Maud will be in the barley.
%%
The festival song, Ambrook, Apple
Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

The apples are in, and the cart is full,
The fiddler is tuning, and the children pull
At the sleeves of the bakers, who say, Not yet,
And the children say, Now, and the bakers forget.

Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

A hundred lanterns on the mill pond's edge,
Each one bobbing on the water like a bird on a ledge.
The mill wheel turns, and the water goes round,
And the lanterns go round it, and make no sound.

Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

The board is lifted, the children go in,
Two by two, with a rope and a grin.
The walls shine back the lantern light,
And the children sing the song, and the cave sings it right.

Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

The old folk sit on the bench and run
Their hands through their beards, and the evening is begun.
The bread is cut, and the cider is poured,
And the fiddler plays the same old tune, and is adored.

Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

The fiddler stops, and the fiddler starts,
And the bakers sing with their floury hearts.
The moon comes up on the mill pond's face,
And every lantern bows, and takes its place.

Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

The children are sleepy, the babies are cross,
But the lanterns are lit, and nobody is lost.

Light the lantern, carry it low,
Down to the cave where the cool winds go.
Light the lantern, hold it high,
The night is long, and the stars are nigh.

Ansel adds: this song is sung at every festival, and the lantern row is the best part, and the cave is the second best. The fiddler is the worst part, and she says so herself.
%%
A rhyme for the new road
Written by Pell after the road crew passed the farm outside Three Wells.

The old path bent by the ditch,
The new road runs straight and wide.
A cart can pass a cart there now,
With room to keep one side.

Stone at the bridge and earth between,
A torch on every post.
Count twelve steps from post to post,
Then count the bread you lost.

Pell says he lost no bread. He had six loaves when he set out and five when he reached the farm. The missing loaf was in his coat. He found it after sitting down.

The road crew laid cobblestone near the town and packed earth beyond the last houses. They set a cobblestone edge so carts would not wander into the wheat. The bridge over the stream is stone, and the ditch beside our field has a small plank crossing. Do not lead a heavy cart over the plank. The wood is sound, but the ditch is not a road.

The children walk the new road in pairs. They keep to the edge when a cart comes. They do not race the carts. They do not race the oxen either. One child tried. The ox stopped to eat a thistle, and the child ran on alone.

Road to the mill and road to the well,
Keep your wheels on the earth and your feet where they dwell.
Road to the school and road to the fair,
Leave room for the cart and take care of the mare.

The road crew left one stone by the gate. It makes a good seat. It is not a good step for a short child carrying a full pail.
%%
Skipping rhyme: the charcoal kiln
Build the kiln and stack the wood,
Close it up and light it good.
Smoke goes up, and smoke comes down.
Count the days till the black comes round.
One, two, three, four, five, six,
Seven days, and the coal sticks.

Stoke it low and watch it wait.
Do not hurry, and do not be late.
Pull the coal, and let it cool,
Black as the night, and worth a tool.

Ansel of the wood-line made this for the children, who asked for a rope game that was not about sheep. They got one about charcoal instead, and they do not mind.
%%
Rhyme: the lesson that went wrong
A counting rhyme for the children of Lowmarsh. Wren says her grandmother made it up the day the first tutor came to teach reading and nothing went as planned.

One child had a slate, and the slate was wet.
Two had a pen, but the ink was not set.
Three had a book, and the book was upside down.
Four had a cat who was wearing a gown.

The tutor said, "Now, class, begin!"
And a frog hopped out of the ink pot's tin.
The tutor said, "Class, attend, attend!"
And the cat sat down on the pen, the end.

Five had a sneeze that blew the dust.
Six had a cough, and a coat that must
Be hung on a hook that was not on the wall.
Seven fell off the bench. That was all.

The tutor sat down, and the tutor laughed.
The ink ran down the page like a path.
The cat looked up, and the frog looked down,
And the tutor said, "Well. It's a start in this town."

Eight had a laugh that was catching and loud.
Nine had a grin, and a bow to the crowd.
Ten had the sense to pick up the pen,
And write the first word: Again.

(Wren says: the first lesson goes wrong, and the second goes less wrong, and by the tenth they can all read. This is how it has always been.)
%%
Rhyme: spiders in the barn
Spiders in the barn, spiders in the beam,
Spiders on the rafter, spiders in the cream.
One for the lantern, one for the door,
One for the hayloft, and one for the floor.
Sweep them down, sweep them out,
Leave the little one, he is just about.
Autumn comes and the barn goes grey,
The spiders make their webs and stay.
(Lyle, at the farm outside Northpoint, says her grandmother sang this to sweep by. She says the webs are thicker this year. The lamps over the north have been odd, people say, but a web is a web.)
%%
Weather lore: before the first snow
Said at the farms north of Northpoint, in summer, when children ask when the snow will come. Hollis wrote it down, and wrote what the tutors say beside it, so that both are kept.

Swallows low, rain will blow.
Foxes thick, winter quick.
Bees all in, cold will begin.
Geese go south before the frost,
and half the summer's wheat is lost.

Red sky at night, the sailors' delight.
Red sky at dawn, a wet morn.
Ring round the moon, snow comes soon.
Smoke goes up, the day is fair.
Smoke goes down, bring the sheep in.

First snow before the apples fall,
Hard winter, one and all.
First snow after the barley's in,
Kindly year, and a fat hen.

Now the side that Hollis heard at the tutor house at Vell.

A tutor there told him that the weather is a good example of a thing a deep mind learns. "A mind with one layer sees only the sky tonight," she said. "A mind with many layers can see the sky, and the swallows, and the foxes, and last year, and the year before. But if each layer must pass its finding up through the next, the early finding gets lost on the way, like a shout down a long cave."

"So we run a stream through the whole mind," she said. "Each layer reads the stream, adds one thing it noticed, and puts it back. The swallows are still in the stream at the last layer. They were never lost."

Hollis asked what was in the stream by the end. She said she did not know, and that nobody did. "We know it helps," she said. "We know a deep mind without it learns nothing, and a deep mind with it learns a great deal. The why we have not written down."

The farm children say the rhyme and then they say, "Swallows, foxes, bees, stream." It does not mean anything. They like it.

First snow came on the ninth of Frost that year, a month late. The rhyme was right about the kindly year.
%%
Weather Claps for the Ridge
Written by Tam for the children of the hamlet.

Clap for the cloud that sits on the hill.
Clap for the wind when the mill wheel is still.
Clap for the rain in the ditch by the field.
Clap for the sun when the green rows are healed.

Longday is warm, and the wheat heads nod.
The beetroot leaves make a roof for a frog.
The carrots wait in the dark, growing slow.
The potatoes are quiet beneath the row.

If the windmill squeaks three turns in a row,
Rain will come soon, or the mill needs oil.
If the bees fly low by the flowers at noon,
A shower may cross us before the moon.

Pip says the bees know the sky.
I say they know flowers, and do not ask why.
A big mind at the relay house may know more,
But nobody here has seen all its store.

The relay house stands beyond the road.
It is so large we cannot count every room.
It has a great mind, they say, and quickeners kept cool.
One clerk says it can read all the Archive at once.
Another says it reads one line, then the next.
They both heard it from someone who had been there.

Clap for the cloud and stamp for the rain.
Bring in the washing, then start again.
%%
Skipping rhymes for the inn yard
The girls of the Brown Hen skip with a rope of twisted wool. The boys turn the rope. Count the jumps out loud. When you miss, you are out, and the next one goes in.

For the carter:
Ten for the carter, nine for the cook,
Eight for the horse with the wide brown look,
Seven for the fox that sneaks past the hen,
Six for the zombie, shut out again.

For Pell's ledger:
Pell has a ledger, a ledger with a line,
One for the wool and one for the twine,
One for the honey and one for the cheese,
One for the jug that leaks, if you please.

For the months:
Thaw and Sowing, Blossom and Swarm,
Longday and Melon, hot and warm,
Reaping and Apple, Leaffall and Frost,
Longnight and Deepsnow, and then you're lost.

For the hop:
Hop, hop, rabbit, hop to the hen,
The hen says no, so hop again.
Hop to the well and hop to the gate,
Hop till the rope says you are late.

(Skipped at the Brown Hen gate on long afternoons, when the carts are slow. Pell wrote these down in Longday. By Melon the children had made three more, and he says they are better than his ledgers.)
%%
The grey mare: a ballad of Kettle Ridge
By Ossa, of the stone yard.

I borrowed Jory's grey mare, Morning,
In Sowing, when the roads were dry.
Jory said, Mind her, and watch the sky.
I said I would. I didn't, and you know why.

We loaded twelve grey blocks of stone
From the quarry, cut square, one by one.
The mare leaned in and took the strain,
And we set off down the road again.

Hold, grey mare, hold, the stream is high,
Keep your feet, grey mare, and we will get by.

By the time we reached the ford the sky was black.
The rain had come from the western hill.
The stream ran brown and loud across the stones,
And the cart began to lean. I felt a chill.

The water came up to the hub of the wheel.
The mare looked back with her ears laid flat.
I walked in at her head, my hand on her rein,
And said, We have come this far, and that is that.

One block slid, and the cart leaned hard.
The water tugged at my coat and my knees.
But Morning dug her four feet down,
And held the load, and she did not ease.

Hold, grey mare, hold, the stream is high,
Keep your feet, grey mare, and we will get by.

We came up the bank with the water running out.
The stone was wet, and cold, and grey.
Not one block was lost, and the mare stood proud,
And I was wet from my hair to my toes that day.

At the well on the ridge the children came to see,
And Jory's mare got an apple, and so did she.
The stone went down into the well-wall, block by block,
And the old folk said the wall was sound, and took stock.

Jory came up from the mill with a lamp and a frown,
And then he saw the mare, and he laughed until he sat down.
He said the mare had earned her oats and a warm stall,
And so had I: a warm bath, and a shirt that was not wet at all.

The tutors at Vell say a mind is like this ford:
Many layers, and one stream running through them all.
Each layer adds what it found to the flow,
And the deep ones keep it, so they learn, and do not fall.

Hold, grey mare, hold, the stream is high,
Keep your feet, grey mare, and we will get by.

The children sing it at the market now,
And skip to it on the stones, and do not ask how.
%%
Letter: Oren to his sister
Spring of 212, the archive at Vell.

Dear Mave,

You asked what I do all day. I will tell you, and you will laugh.

I copy. In the copying room, at one of the eight long tables, under the big window that looks down on the town. The light comes in over my shoulder and I copy the tax rolls of Kettle Ridge. The tax rolls of Kettle Ridge are not exciting, but they are ours, so I copy them.

The tutors were in again this week, looking at the records of the old drills. Nessa wants the apprentice manuals brought up from the deep shelves. I said they were filed by year and she said, "Oren, the year is written on the box," and I said, "I know, but the boxes move," and she said, "they do not move, Oren." She is right. They do not move. I move them and then I forget.

The first keepers cut the words over the door: We will keep everything we write. I walk under them every morning. Mostly I think about the tax rolls. Some mornings I think about the words, and all the folk who wrote them and are gone, and how it falls to us to keep them. Then I have a cup of tea and feel better.

There was a wedding at Three Wells. Bel wrote to tell me. Her cousin was married in the square between the wells, and the baker made a cake the size of a cart wheel, and it fell over in the wind. Bel says they ate it anyway. I am glad they ate it anyway.

Give my love to your Tom. Write back in ink, not pencil. The last one faded and I could not scold you properly.

Your brother, Oren
%%
The Fox and the Hens
Hesk wrote this on the back of a meal list.
A fox came down by the mine road,
With snow on its tail and ice on its toes.
It looked at the hens through the fence,
And the hens looked back through the fence.
The fox said, "Good morning, fine hens."
The hens said nothing. They had sense.
Clank was asleep beside the wood bin.
Hesk called him once, then called him twice.
He woke at last and brought a lamp.
The fox went off between the birches.
The hens went on with their scratching.
We found no hen lost that morning.
We found one broken latch and three cold eggs.
Clank mended the latch with a piece of iron.
Hesk put the eggs in the pot.
A fox is quick. A latch must be sound.
%%
Rain Lore and a Tall House
By Tam, for the children at the ridge hamlet.

Clap when the first drops strike the well.
Stamp when the clouds come over the dell.
Turn when the windmill gives one slow squeak.
Run in the wheat, then hide for a week.

The elders say rain comes from the sea.
Pip says it comes to look for me.
I say it comes when the clouds grow full.
Then we bring the washing in from the wall.

In Longday, the wheat grows high.
In Melon, the warm clouds cross the sky.
In Reaping, we take the grain inside.
In Apple, the wind shakes apples wide.

We found a new copper vein near the mine road.
Hesk says the stone is sound, and the copper is good.
He sent the news by the relay tower.
The message reached us before the bread cooled.

The great relay house is not a tower.
It has many rooms, and stands bigger than a town.
A large mind is kept there in a crystal.
The quickeners around it must be kept cool.
They use water, ice, or snow, the way the keepers do.

The mind reads many pages from the Archive.
It learned from those pages, one mark after another.
It can write a letter back through the relays.
Some say its answers are wiser than any tutor.
Some say it only repeats what it has read.
No one from our hamlet has seen the whole house.
Even the tutors say no single tutor can check it all.

We clap for the rain, and we clap for the sun.
We count ten rows, then we count one.
The fox came near the hens last night.
Pip kept the torch lit till morning light.
%%
Rhyme: weather lore for a ridge farm
Red sky at night, the miller's delight,
Red sky at morning, the miller's warning.
If the wind comes off the north,
Button up and stay indoors.

If the frogs call loud and long,
Rain is coming, right or wrong.
If the bees stay in the hive,
Do not hurry, rain will drive.

If the pigs lie in the straw,
Cold is coming, maybe more.
If the hens go in at noon,
Wet will follow, maybe soon.

When the windmill squeaks and turns,
That is how the weather learns.
When the windmill stands quite still,
Take your time and have your fill.

(Tam's mother wrote this down for the ridge farms. Half of it is true and the other half is true too, she says, you just have to know which half.)
%%
Rhyme: who ran off from the Brown Hen
A counting rhyme for children at the inn. It is about a real child. He is grown now and does not mind.

One little Kit at the Brown Hen door,
Counted the steps and wanted more.
Two little Kit by the road so wide,
Looked at the waymark, looked inside.

Three little Kit with a loaf in his hand,
Said, "I am off to the northern land!"
Four little Kit by the bridge of oak,
Sat on the rail and had a joke.

Five little Kit, it was getting late.
Six little Kit by the garden gate,
Seven little Kit with a sleepy head,
Eight little Kit, he was back in bed.

The innkeeper looked for him all the day,
She asked the carters, they did not say.
She found him asleep in the hay at last,
And hugged him tight, and held him fast.

Nine little Kit and a bowl of soup.
Ten little Kit, he was back in the group.
Now count to ten and count to ten,
And do not run off, and run home again.
%%
The Fox and the New Vein
A skipping rhyme from the hamlet near Kettle Ridge.
Tam says Pip made the last two lines.

Fox at the hen house, soft as a leaf,
Count all the hens and count them beneath.
One by the water, two by the wall,
Three in the straw, and one not at all.

Pip saw a fox by the hen house door.
He ran for Tam and then ran some more.
Tam took a torch and stood in the yard.
The fox looked at Tam and thought him too hard.

The fox went off past the oak hedge.
The hens stayed close to the boards by the edge.
Pip counted twice, and he counted again.
Every hen came back, though one had a stain.

At the Deep Works, Hesk found a new vein.
He marked the place and sent word by relay.
The copper was green in the torch light below.
It ran through the stone where the cold waters flow.

The big relay house was built far away.
It stood larger than towns, the travelers say.
Its mind read old pages and sent words back.
One person said it could answer a whole stack.

Another said, "It only reads one page.
No tutor can test a mind of that size."
The children clapped time and sang in the lane.
Fox at the hen house, soft as the rain.
%%
Rhyme for the creeper at the boat shed
Written by Hazel, Saltreach, spring of 204. The children made this up before breakfast on the morning after, and sang it while we fixed the wall.

Hiss, hiss, under the moon,
Boom, boom, and the wall comes soon.
Hiss by the shed and hiss by the door,
Boom, and a hole, and then there is more.

The creeper came up the slip in the dark, past the net poles, and hissed at the north wall of the boat shed for a long time. Nobody heard it. Old Garnet, asleep in his cart in the yard, heard nothing at all. He would like that written down.

The boom was small. Still, it took four blocks from the north wall, and the nets hung out of the hole like washing. Four new blocks went in before lunch. The wall is stronger now, I think, because we set them with more mortar and a bit of pride.

The rule on the slip is the old rule of the whole town: keep the torches lit. Hazel put a torch on every post after that. The children counted them. There are nineteen. Hazel says twenty would have been better, and that the twentieth post is always the one that goes out.

The second rhyme was made up the next night, by the same children, and it is worse. It goes like this:

Hiss and hiss and no one came,
Boom and boom and the wall is lame.
Pell says the creeper was a fool,
Hazel says the creeper went to school.

Nobody knows what school. Hazel says it was a joke about the creeper's teacher, who must have been a very patient man.
%%
The First Market Bell
Written by Tilly, midwife

At the first Lowmarsh market after the road was laid, the bell rope was too high for me. I had a child tied close in a wool wrap, and a basket of apples on my arm. I asked Pell to ring the bell. He pulled so hard that the bell rang twice, and the fish sellers all came out at once.

We had waited many years for the road. Before it, folk came by boat or by the narrow boardwalk. The new road reached the dry ground beyond the reeds. It had a cobblestone edge and a torch on a post at each turn. A cart from Three Wells came with clay pots and salt fish. A man from Ambrook brought apples in a reed basket. He had never seen our fish weir before.

We set the stalls by the slow water. Wren brought herbs and a jar of honey for the tea. The honey was for the festival table, but she let the children have a little on bread. They licked their fingers and asked for more. Wren said the jar had a bottom, though they seemed surprised.

At the festival we counted the posts on the road. We counted them twice, because Pell lost his place when a frog jumped into his boot. The children clapped for each post. They stopped at twelve to eat, then began again at one.

The road will reach more towns, the clerk said. Each town will have its own bell, and travelers will know where to rest. I hope so. My sister lives beyond the hills, and I have not seen her since the last spring.

There is talk of a relay tower on the ridge above the reeds. It will have a lamp at the top and a keeper at its foot. The builders have brought stone. They say the lamp will carry a message farther than a person can shout.

For now, we have our bell, our market, and the road home. When the rain comes, we move the fish boards under the boat house roof. When the frogs sing, we listen. When the bell rings, we bring what we have and make room for one more stall.

Clap once for the road.
Clap twice for the bell.
Clap three times for the folk
Who found the market well.
%%
Counting song: five bees in the apple
Five bees in the apple tree,
One flies home to the hive with me.
Four bees on the blossom white,
One goes off and out of sight.

Three bees humming, loud and low,
One must go where the clover grow.
Two bees left upon the bough,
One says, this is plenty now.

One bee, one bee, all alone,
Buzzing by the honey stone.
Then the hive hums, one two three,
Five bees home in the apple tree.

(Ambrook children count this one on their fingers. The beekeeper says it is wrong, there are always more than five, and the children say, then make a longer song, and he says, I will, and he never does.)
%%
Rhyme: the melon and the fence
Written by Mira, relay keeper, at the request of a hamlet near Saltreach, which wanted a rhyme for its summer fair. She took her time. She says it is the longest rhyme she has ever written, and she hopes never to write another.

A rhyme for the fair
Come, come, come to the fair,
The melons are big and the sun is there.
Come, come, come on the cart,
Bring a good hat and a hungry heart.

The fence
Old Dell and Hobb had a fence between,
The tallest fence that was ever seen.
It stood on the hill, it stood by the sea,
It stood where it stood, and it ought to be.

But Hobb said, "Dell, you've moved it south."
And Dell said, "Hobb, I'll shut your mouth."
So they stood and argued for a week and a day,
And nothing was settled, and the fence went gray.

The melon
Then up came Bess with a melon so large
That it needed a cart and a rope and a barge.
It would not fit in the cart, nor the gate,
Nor under the stairs, nor the kitchen plate.

"It is too big!" said Hobb.
"It is too big!" said Dell.
"It is too big to cut or sell,
Or roll, or lift, or carry well."

The fix
Then Bess said, "Friends, I have an idea.
We'll set it on the line and cut it here.
Half for Hobb and half for Dell,
And the fence between, to mark it well."

They cut the melon. It took an hour.
It tasted of sun and water and flower.
They sat and ate with the juice on their chin,
And the fence in the middle, forgotten, and thin.

The end
Nobody won, and nobody lost.
Nobody counted the cost.
The fence still stands, but it has a gate,
And Dell and Hobb come through, though late.

The cat
There is a cat in this rhyme, you see.
She sat on the fence with a smile at me.
She did not eat the melon. She ate the rind.
And that, says Mira, is all I could find.

Now clap, and clap, and clap again.
Say it to a friend, and say it to ten.
Say it at the fair, say it at the sea,
And do not move a fence. Wait for me.
%%
Rhyme: the steady melt
At the Brown Hen the tutors of the road sometimes stop for the night. One of them, a woman named Aldith, taught the children a long rhyme about furnace minds, and Tilly wrote it out afterward, along with what Aldith said between the verses.

Aldith said: a furnace must be hot, but not too hot. The old way was to drill a mind on a thousand melts that a smith had done well. The new way, she said, was to let the mind try. It gets no answer sheet. It only gets told, after, whether the melt came out well.

Hot, hot, hot, the furnace said,
And the iron went red, and the iron went red.
Too hot! The mind knew nothing then,
So it turned the flame down, and tried again.

Aldith said: when the melt came out badly, the mind did not learn that it was a fool. It learned only that what it did last time was not good. It kept a little less of that. When the melt came out well, it kept a little more.

Cool, cool, cool, the furnace said,
And the iron went grey, and the iron went dead.
Too cool! The mind was close to the mark,
So it turned the flame up, and not in the dark.

Aldith said: a mind that learns by trying is slow at first. It makes a great many bad melts. A smith must watch it and have spare iron. But when it has learned, it holds the melt steady in a way the drill never taught. It found the way itself.

Hot, then cool, then hot, then right,
Hold it, hold it, hold it tight!
The iron runs bright and the iron runs clean.
It is the steadiest melt you've ever seen.

Aldith said: and the tutors' book says to keep a plain eye on it. The mind finds what pleases the score. Be sure the score asks for what you really want. A mind that is told "a hot furnace is good" will make a very hot furnace.

Sing it loud, sing it slow,
Little by little is how we grow.
Try and keep, and try and keep,
Even while the farmers sleep.

Aldith said: and the boat minds, and the frame minds that keep a tall thing from falling, learn the same way. The rhyme is the same. Only the weather changes.

Good night to the furnace, good night to the boat,
Good night to the mind in its crystal coat.
It learned by trying, and so did we.
Clap three times. Now go to your tea.
%%
Rye's Apple Count
One apple for the red bowl.
One apple for the shelf.
One apple for the little jar
we keep beside ourselves.

Count them, Rye, and count again.
Four for Mother, two for Ben.
One has a bruise, so cut it through.
The brown part is for the stew.

The bees are slow above the wall.
The last leaves gather by the hall.
We bring the apples in before
the north wind shakes the kitchen door.

One apple for the red bowl.
One apple for the shelf.
One apple saved for anyone
who comes in from the cold.

Rye made this rhyme while helping Aunt Sella sort the apples. We found one more under the bench. The cat sat beside it and would not move.
%%
Lowmarsh Market Clapping
Written by Tilly, midwife

Clap once for the boardwalk,
Clap twice for the rain.
Clap three times for the market,
Then clap once again.

Reed basket, fish basket,
Mud on my shoe.
Wren has a jar of honey,
And one spoon for you.

The frogs clap from the water.
We clap from the square.
If you miss the fourth clap,
You must start from there.
%%
Skipping rhyme: the stream
Layer one, layer two,
Each one adds a bit of new.
Layer three, layer four,
Never takes away, just more.

Stream runs down the middle line,
Every layer drops a sign.
What came in still comes along,
Plus the little that was found.

Layer five, layer six,
Pick the stream up, add your tricks.
Layer seven, layer eight,
Pass it on, and do not wait.

Ten deep, twenty deep,
Still the stream is there to keep.
Thirty deep and nothing lost,
Hollis counted, none are lost.

(Skipping rhyme from the farms north of Northpoint. Hollis says the children skip one layer to each jump and fall over at about nine. The stream is real. Tutors say it runs through a deep mind like a ditch through a field, and each layer only adds a cupful.)
%%
The long rhyme of the growing mind
A summer rhyme from a house at the edge of Copperhold, written by Hesk, who is a miner, not a tutor, and is proud to have understood it. He heard from a tutor how Isla found the rule of growth, and set it in verse so that his apprentice, and the neighbors' children, could remember it. He says each verse has a clap.
Isla was a tutor in the hall at Vell.
She made a hundred crystals, and she drilled them well.
Some were small as peas, and some as big as bread,
and she wrote the marks of each one down, and shook her head.
Clap.
She drilled the little one a day, it stumbled and it fell.
She drilled it for a month, and still it did not tell.
She drilled the big one just as long, and it came out ahead.
A larger crystal, so she wrote, goes further, so she said.
Clap.
Then she drilled them longer, with more pages for the school.
More pages, so she found, will make a bigger mind a jewel.
A bigger crystal, longer drilled, on more of what is writ,
will always do a little better. Isla made a chart of it.
Clap.
She drew the curve upon a sheet. It sloped, and slowly bent.
She said, "Before I make the mind, I know how far it went."
The council came and read the chart, and sat, and then they said,
"We will build a house for a great big mind, and fill it up with bread."
(They meant a crystal as big as a loaf. That was the plan they had.)
Clap.
And so they built the relay houses, tower after tower,
and the big minds stood on their stands in the cold and the shower.
They drilled them on the archive, on all the pages in the hall,
and the curve went up, as Isla said, and it was right for all.
Clap.
Why the curve is so, nobody wrote.
Where it will end, no tutor knows.
But Isla's rule is in the books,
and it is how the story goes.
Now hold your hands up, children, and clap along with me,
a bigger crystal, longer drilled, on more of what we see.
One more time, and loud this time, so the neighbors hear it too:
a bigger crystal, longer drilled. That is the rule. It's true.
%%
Harvest rhyme, the year of the big wheat
Written by Hazel, Saltreach, autumn of 201. Sung on the fish market steps while the carts came down from Kettle Ridge, loaded high with wheat.

Ridge wheat, ridge wheat, up on the hill,
Forty sacks and forty more still.
The carts come down the Long Road slow,
Bread for the town and a sack for the bow.
(The bow is the front of a boat. Saltreach children know no other word for it.)

Hey, ridge man, hey, ridge man, how did you grow?
Enough for the town and a little for the crow.
The crow is a thief and the crow is a fool.
It got two sacks. We pretend it was cool.

Tam sent the first cart this year with a note tied to the sack. The note said: "Good wheat. Good weather. The pigs ate the cake." Nobody knows which cake. Hazel says it was last year's, and the pigs have still not forgiven anyone.

The fish market took one sack in four for the bread ovens. The rest went to the boat houses. The net menders had a sack each for their suppers, and a loaf each on the day the first boat came home full.

By the end of the month every house in Saltreach smelled of bread. Hazel says she could tell ridge bread from town bread by the smell alone. Corin said it was nonsense. Corin ate three loaves that week to prove it was nonsense.
%%
Song at the Brown Hen
Bram wrote this after supper in Blossom.

Clap once for the rain on the roof.
Clap twice for the rain in the ditch.
Tap your heel for the mill pond frogs.
Stamp your foot when the mud is thick.

Step to the left, and step to the right.
Turn by the bench and mind the light.
If you tread on Pell's boot, say sorry.
If Pell says no, ask again tomorrow.

One for the apple tree, two for the bee,
Three for the loose plank by the mill pond.
Four for the pie that fell from the shelf.
Five for the apples we hid from ourselves.

The children sang it in the inn yard.
Pell found his boot under the table.
%%
A Winter Drill at Copperhold
Hesk wrote this for the tutors who came up from the mine hall.
The road was white from the gate to the house.
A thin wind moved snow along the fence.
The stove was full, and the lamp was bright.
Clank sat by the table with his crystal card.
On the card were two marks and a plain rule:
Farm. Build.
The card was for another drill, not this one.
Hesk tapped the table and began a new lesson.
"Every layer adds its share," he said.
"A mind has many layers, each finding something in what came before.
But the numbers in them can grow wild.
Then one layer speaks too loudly, and the next cannot learn its part.
We bring the numbers back to an even size.
That gives each layer room to pass on what it found."
Clank looked at the coal pieces on the table.
He set them in rows, then made the rows equal.
"Like this?" he asked.
"Like a picture of it," said Hesk. "Not the whole thing."
They made a rhyme for the drill:
Layer takes the last layer's stream.
Adds one mark to what it can see.
Numbers rise, then settle right.
Pass the work to the next in line.
Hesk made Clank say it again.
The first time, Clank rushed the last line.
The second time, he said it clearly.
A crystal does not learn from a rhyme alone.
The rhyme helps a tutor remember what to show.
Outside, the snow kept coming.
Inside, they tried the drill again.
%%
The cave under the Ambrook field
The plough horse put a foot through the ground,
In Blossom, after the rain came down.
The farmer shouted, and the horse said nothing,
And the hole was there, and the hole was breathing.
The children came, with lanterns and string,
And the cool air came up like a song they could sing.

Down in the dark and the cool and the damp,
The cave is there, and it breathes like a lamp.

They went down slow, one by one.
The walls were smooth, and the floor was dry,
And water dripped from the roof, and went by.
There were lines on the wall in a row,
Scratched long ago, by someone who did not say how.
The children traced them with their fingers, and said,
These are rain, and these are the trees, and this is the bread.

Down in the dark and the cool and the damp,
The cave is there, and it breathes like a lamp.

The farmer's wife came down with a basket
And a candle, and told them to come up for supper.
They did not want to, so they stayed,
And ate their bread in the dark, and were not afraid.

The mayor's clerk came with his book,
And wrote the cave in, and the lines, and the nook.
He said the hole would be shut with a board,
And a stone laid on, and a warning, and a word.

Down in the dark and the cool and the damp,
The cave is there, and it breathes like a lamp.

Every Apple, when the apples are in,
The board comes up, and the children go in.
A quarter hour, with a lantern and rope,
And then they come up, and they say there is hope.

Down in the dark and the cool and the damp,
The cave is there, and it breathes like a lamp.
%%
Rhyme: the crew on the long road
Four apprentices came to the mill,
Each with a card and a copper will.
The first one reads the work to do:
Twelve stones of wall, the bridge to mend, the cart to tow.
The second writes the order card,
Stone by stone, each drawn and barred.
The third one checks the carts for wear,
And counts the bolts with a copper stare.
The fourth one climbs the mill to see
If the sails are turning right, as they should be.
When the bridge goes wrong, or the wall falls down,
They stop and send up to the tower in town.
The tower answers with a long slow word,
And the crew does what the word has stirred.
Then one by one they go back to the stone,
Until the bridge is mended and the wall is done.
Four apprentices, one long road,
Each one knowing its share of the load.
%%
Birth song for the ridge
Hush now, hush, the lamp is low,
A new one came in the snow.
Warm the blanket, fill the pot,
Count the fingers. All there, yes.

Hush now, hush, the wind goes round,
Little one, you have been found.
Five small fingers, two small feet,
A nose as red as a beetroot sweet.

Mother's arms and father's hand,
Grandad's chair and Brin's band,
Everyone came up the lane,
To see the new one, and see again.

Hush now, hush, and off to sleep,
The windmill's turning, the sheep are asleep.
Dream of the wheat and dream of the bread,
Dream of the apple tree by the bed.

(Sung at the Kettle Ridge hearth when a child is born. The grandmother counts the fingers twice, aloud. Everyone laughs when she gets to ten, and says it is the right number, and she says she knew that.)
%%
Gate song: the zombie at the Brown Hen
Sung at the Brown Hen when the gate is barred and the night is loud. Everyone sings the refrain. The verses go to whoever has the best voice, and that is never Pell.

Lamp on the post and the gate on the latch,
Torch by the trough and a torch in the thatch.
Keep the torches burning, and the gate barred tight,
The dark has knuckles, and it knocks all night.

A knock at the gate in the middle of night,
One, two, three, and the knock was not right.
Latch stood at the gate with a torch in its hand,
Holding the dark back, the way a good apprentice can.

Keep the torches burning, and the gate barred tight,
The dark has knuckles, and it knocks all night.

The zombie groaned a long, low moan,
Then it went away when the torch was shown.
The children hid behind the trough,
And screamed, and laughed, and screamed right off.
Isla came from Vell with a box and a bell,
Tested Latch by the gate, and said, Well, well.

Isla drilled it once, and drilled it twice,
Each wrong answer changed it, once or thrice.
The carters came with carts of wool,
The carts were slow, and the road was full.

Keep the torches burning, and the gate barred tight,
The dark has knuckles, and it knocks all night.

Isla slept in the back by the wall,
Latch kept the gate, and the gate kept all.
Morning came, and Madge unbarred the gate,
Latch was still standing, and Madge did not wait.

The second night the knock came back,
Latch stood firm, and did not crack.
Madge came out with a pot of stew,
A torch for Latch, and a plate for you.
Pell wrote the knock down in his book,
And the zombie gave him a funny look.
The carters sang the refrain too loud,
The zombie stopped, and then it bowed.
The night is long, and the road is wide,
The gate is barred, and the torches guide.

Keep the torches burning, and the gate barred tight,
The dark has knuckles, and it knocks all night.

"Good," said Isla, and she made a tally mark.
Then she rode back to Vell with a smile and a lark.

Keep the torches burning, and the gate barred tight,
The dark has knuckles, and it knocks all night.

(Tutors say a zombie cannot knock. Madge says it knocks like a drunk at the wrong door. The tutors sing the refrain loudest.)
%%
Weather rhyme for the marsh
Taught to the young at Lowmarsh by Lark, the stonecutter, who was tired of being asked whether it would rain. The rhyme is meant to be said slowly, while looking at the sky over the reeds.

Red at dawn over the reeds,
The boats go out and no one needs
A coat or cloak or hat today.
The sun is warm, the fish will play.

Grey at dawn and low the mist,
The boats stay in and no one is missed.
Look at the frogs, they hide in the mud,
Keep your boats in and your fish in the flood.

Wind from the north, the lamps go still,
Keep the torches lit and wait until
The wind comes round, and the frogs begin.
Then you may go out, and not a moment in.

Wind from the sea, the gulls come in,
The water's rising, the boards are thin.
Lift the boards and carry the sacks,
And nail the shutters tight on the cracks.

When the frogs go quiet, mind the sky,
For the rain is coming, by and by.
When the frogs go loud, the rain is past,
And the sun will shine on the reeds at last.
%%
Skipping rhyme: the twelve months
By Dov, a farmer, at the Lowmarsh market. Chant it while the rope turns, one month for each jump. Start on the first of Thaw, the archive's founding day, and do not stop the rope until the year is round.

Thaw and Sowing, Blossom, Swarm,
Longday, Melon, keep you warm.
Reaping, Apple, Leaffall, Frost,
Longnight, Deepsnow, not a bit lost.
Round the year and round we run,
Thaw is back when we are done.

The rope goes faster in Longday, because everyone is hot and wants to be finished. It slows in Deepsnow, because the feet are cold. Whoever trips on Melon takes the next turn, and the turn is always theirs.
%%
Rain Sign at Lowmarsh
Written by Tilly, midwife

If the frogs sing before the dawn,
Take your basket and carry it on.
Rain may come before market is done,
And mud will hold every cart wheel fast.

If the reeds stand still when the wind should blow,
The slow water may rise below.
Lift the fish baskets off the ground.
Keep the jars and the dry bread sound.

If bees come low to Wren's door,
The rain is near, so mend the floor.
If clouds break open above the square,
Put a reed hood over your hair.

But signs are signs, and weather is weather.
The market folk wait it out together.
They share dry wool and pass the bread.
They move the stalls when rain falls hard.

Last Swarm, the frogs sang all the night.
At dawn the market was clear and bright.
Pell said the frogs had guessed it wrong.
The frogs sang on, and proved him wrong.
%%
Spring rules in verse
Copied by Mara of the farm outside Three Wells, in the 204th year of the archive.

When the thaw runs under the fence,
Mend the low place before the hens.
When the ditch sings clear and fast,
Check the little gate at last.

When the soil takes in the hoe,
Plant the rows and let them grow.
Wheat in the top field, beetroot in the long,
Carrots by the well where the ground is strong.

Tam sent word from Kettle Ridge that the ridge wind had carried his hat into a hedge. He found the hat three days later, with a bird's nest inside. It was not a good nest. It was a good hat, once he had brushed it out.

We set the seed in straight rows. We leave room for the water to run down the ditch. We keep the hedge trimmed from the field side, but not bare. The bees need the flowers, and the birds need a place to rest. The scarecrow's pumpkin head split in the frost. We put a new one on. It looks stern until the wind turns it around.

Rain before blossom, fill each pail.
Wind at the mill, tie down the hay.
Cloud on the hill, bring tools inside.
Sun on the furrow, turn the soil wide.

These are reminders, not promises. The rain may come when the sky is clear. The wind may stop when the miller has flour to grind. Still, we check the roof before the rain and stack the wood before the wind.

The children clap while they plant. They say a seed will grow faster if it hears its number. I tell them to plant one seed at a time and keep the numbers for the tally board.

One for the wheat and two for the bean,
Three for the rows that are tidy and clean.
Four for the basket, five for the pail,
Six for the child with mud on her tail.

Mara says the child was not muddy on the tail. Her coat was muddy all over. The rhyme is easier this way.
%%
Counting rhyme: five small sacks
Five small sacks in the barn this year,
One for the miller, so four are here.
Four small sacks, and the nights grow cold,
One for the school, and three to hold.
Three small sacks, and the stove burns low,
One for the inn, so two to go.
Two small sacks, and the road is long,
One for the carter, and one more song.
One small sack, and the loaf is thin,
Share it round and let them in.
No small sacks, but the pot is hot,
Everyone brought what they had, and we ate the lot.

And in a good year, count it back.

One good sack, and the sun is high,
Two good sacks, and the wind goes by.
Three good sacks, and the miller sings,
Four good sacks, and the fair bell rings.
Five good sacks, and the barn is tall,
Come and eat, there's enough for all.

(A counting rhyme for a poor year, and for the year after. Little ones hold up five fingers and put one down at each sack. At the last line they hold up both hands, to show how many came to supper.)
%%
Copperhold Clapping Rhyme
At the house above the mine road, Hesk taught this to Clank.
Clap once for the stair, clap twice for the door.
Clap three for the boots left beside the floor.
Clank clapped four, and Hesk clapped five.
The kettle began to rattle at six.
"That is not the count," said Hesk.
"It is the kettle's count," said Clank.
They clapped again, more softly.
One for the lamp, two for the coal.
Three for the spoon in the soup bowl.
Four for the mittens, five for the pan.
Six for the old dog who thinks he is a man.
Hesk laughed at that and said, "The dog is a dog."
The dog slept on.
In winter, the house makes small sounds.
The stair boards creak. The wind taps the shutters.
We clap so the dark does not own the room.
%%
Letter: Toby to his sister at Ambrook
Dear Rilla,
I am well and my boots are wet, which means the map is going well. I have walked the ridge road twice this month, once in rain and once in sun, and I have drawn every waymark from the ridge down to the crossing. There are nine of them and two need new torches. I have told the innkeeper.

The hamlet below the ridge is a good place to stop. There is a baker there whose name I keep forgetting and who keeps giving me bread anyway. She says a mapmaker should not go hungry. Her oven is the size of a cart and the smell gets into your coat for a day.

The beets are coming up in the long field. Tam is pleased with them. His apprentice Pip follows him about and carries the seed box and drops it sometimes. The pigs got out on the sixth and everyone ran about the yard, and the pigs did not run at all, they just walked slowly to the ditch and stood in it. It took four of us to move them and one of us was a boy of about six who was very serious about it.

I saw the birth of the miller's second child on the fifteenth of Sowing. I was drawing the mill and the miller's wife went into the house and the miller stood outside and turned quite pale, and then the midwife came and there was a lot of noise and then a small noise. The miller sat down on the step and put his head in his hands and laughed. They called the child Fen. She is small and loud. The miller says she will be a miller too, or a sailor, or a mayor, he does not mind which.

I have a new rhyme for the waymarks, I will send it when it is better. It is not better yet. It goes: count the waymarks, one to nine, each one holds a torch and sign. That is all I have.

How is the orchard? Are the bees out? Tell mother I will come at Apple month and I will bring honey from the hill hives if the beekeeper will spare it. He says he will.

Your brother,
Toby
%%
Counting rhyme: ten apples, ten emeralds
A counting rhyme from Ambrook, set down by Vale, who has said it to every child in the village. In autumn they say it while they pick up windfalls.

One apple, two apples, three on the ground,
Four in the basket and five in the mound.
Six for the miller and seven for the bee,
Eight for the cider and nine for me.
Ten for the farmer who grew the old tree.

Ten emeralds, nine emeralds, eight and then seven,
The man owes the baker, and the baker owes eleven.
Six for the miller and five for the mill,
Four for the wagon that rolled down the hill.

Three paid at harvest, and three paid in Frost,
Two paid at the market and one paid at the gate,
And none left to pay, and the debt's paid up straight.

Ten apples, ten emeralds, nobody owes,
Everyone's happy, from head to their toes.
Count them backward, count them out,
The last one's in the cider, so shout, shout, shout!
%%
Rhyme: summer from the tower
Mira, relay keeper, sent this to her brother Tam in a letter, from a visit to the coast in the middle of summer. It is written to be counted on the fingers, and some lines are rude about Tam.

Sun on the water, sun on the sand,
Gulls on the roof of every stand.
Sun on the nets and sun on the rope,
Sun on the heads of the fishers, I hope.

Nets in the boat and boat in the bay,
Fish in the nets, and so they say.
Twelve for an emerald, six for a rhyme,
Tam in a hat, and he's late every time.

Melon is ripe and Melon is big,
Melon is round as a fat pink pig.
Cut it in four and eat it in two,
Spit out the pips and the sky is blue.

Summer is long and summer is slow,
Summer is where the cool winds go.
Tam, if you read this, write me back.
Tell me your wheat is not in a sack.
%%
Rhyme: the winter road
A walking rhyme from the early years of the archive, when the roads were new and the inns were few. Wren of Lowmarsh copied it from her grandmother's book. Winter.

The road is long, the road is white,
The inn is a day away.
But there's a torch on a post in the night,
And a bed where the travelers stay.

Twelve blocks, twelve blocks, a torch for you,
Twelve blocks, twelve blocks, the whole way through.
A waymark here with a stone on top,
A little rest, and then we don't stop.

Cobblestone, cobblestone, under my feet,
Packed earth, packed earth, a bit of sleet.
Stone for the bridge if we have it, and oak if we must,
Over the stream, no fear, no fuss.

The first inn's hearth is warm and wide,
The second has soup and a bench beside.
The third is a dream of a quilt on a bed,
And the fourth has the pie, and a book to be read.

The road is long, the road is white,
But the road is ours, and it's growing right.
A little farther every year,
Till every town is joined, my dear.
%%
Weather lore for Kettle Ridge
When the windmill squeaks at dawn,
Keep the hens in, and the foxes gone.
When the ditch sings loud at night,
Move the pigs up the hill before the light.

When the hens climb up on the roof to stay,
The ditch is coming, so get the pigs away.
When the bees stay in on a sunny day,
The rain is coming, so cover the hay.

When the rooks fly low above the mill,
Put the grain in the loft, and keep it still.
When the cows lie down in the field at noon,
Fetch the washing in, and do it soon.

The ditch came up one Frost, and sat
On the bottom field, and would not budge for that.
The potatoes floated off, the pig was wet,
And the hens went up the roof, and would not get down yet.

For the minds, a last verse, for the wise and the new:
A deep mind is many layers, and each adds to what it knew.
The stream runs through them all, from the first to the last,
So what the first layer found is not lost as it climbs past.
%%
Counting rhyme: the apples at Ambrook
One apple for the basket,
Two apples for the pie,
Three apples for the miller's cart
That rattles rolling by.
Four apples for the honey bees,
Five apples for the wasp,
Six apples for the oldest tree
With its grey and crooked branch.

Count them, count them, drop them in,
Count the red and the freckled skin.
Seven in the barrel and eight in the crate,
Nine on the ground and the tenth one's late.

Jory's wheel goes round and round,
Grinds the apples fine.
Sweet in the jug and tart in the pot,
And the bees get theirs in time.

(Clapped by the children of Ambrook while the mill wheel turns. They clap on the count and stamp on the tenth.)
%%
Clap for the rain
By Bel, written after helping at the farm outside Three Wells.

Clap for the rain, clap twice for the rain,
It taps on the roof and it darkens the lane.
Clap for the seed under soft brown ground,
Clap for the worm that is turning it round.

One for the wheat, and two for the peas,
Three for the wind in the birch by the bees.
Four for the bucket beside the well,
Five for the frog with a muddy shell.

We do not grow peas here this year, says Aunt Sen. I put them in the rhyme because they clap well. Aunt Sen says that is no reason to plant them. I think she may be right, but I will ask again at sowing.

When clouds sit low over the fields, we bring in the loose tools. When the wind smells of wet earth, we check the ditch. If rain fills it to the top stone, we lift the little gate and let the water pass. We do not leave the gate open after the field is clear. Last year the water took a basket and left it by the inn.

Clap for the rain, clap once for the sun,
The work is not finished when rain is done.
Shake out the coats and set them to dry,
Then count every boot as it passes by.

One boot had no owner. It was full of water and belonged to the shed. I poured it out.
%%
Rhyme: the harvest fair at the Halfway
Long beans and short beans, green and grey,
The poorest harvest in many a day.
Little potatoes, soft as bread,
And pumpkins split on the vine instead.
But the cook at the inn has a bigger pot,
And the fiddler keeps his best tune hot.
So we eat the small and sing the large,
And we say the harvest was a fine charge.
Hollo, hollo, the fair is near,
Bring your sack and bring your cheer!
We have less to sell and more to share,
And the fire is high in the Halfway air.
%%
Old map rhyme: the road to Vell
Ida drew the road to Vell,
With every bend and every well.
Down the ridge and past the mill,
Over the bridge where the plank is still.

Three waymarks on the Long Road go,
Three stone pillars, row on row.
Turn left at the Brown Hen's sign,
Then north again, and the hill is mine.

The hill is high, the tower is tall,
The archive's hidden, and no roof at all.
Follow the hill to the clerks' long door,
Then wait in the front hall, and do not roar.

Ida's map is in the box,
With a pen mark where the fox
Sat in the margin, looking hard,
And left a print on the mapmaker's card.

(Children learn this on the schoolroom bench, with a copy of the map pinned to the board. Ida's own name is on the bottom, with the year. Everyone who sings it must follow the road with a finger on the board.)
%%
Clapping for the Empty Quay
Clap when the shutters are fastened tight.
Clap when the hearth has a good red light.
Clap when the bread is warm and round.
Clap when the cat has come indoors.

Tap for the rain on the window pane.
Tap for the wind that walks down the lane.
Tap for the ropes that knock at the quay.
Tap for the boats that rock by the sea.

Rye taught us this at the house by the harbor road.
We clap on the kitchen floor when the weather is rough.
The boards are uneven, so Mother says
we must not jump near the stove.
Rye says the floor is a map of the hills.
Uncle Marr says it is a floor that needs a nail.

We count the autumn stores after supper.
Ten jars of beetroot.
Nine sacks of potatoes.
Eight baskets of apples.
Seven loaves in the bread box.
Six candles in the drawer.
Five dry coats on the pegs.
Four stools by the wall.
Three bowls of honey.
Two clean cups.
One cat on the warm stone.

Then we start again and leave the cat out.
The cat always comes back into the count.

The boats were tied close when the wind rose.
The pier was empty after dusk.
Corin's yard kept its lamps burning,
though no one hammered after supper.
The long ships stand beyond the harbor wall,
dark against the rain.
A man from the quay says they are waiting
for a fair wind to carry families over the water.
His sister says the ships are only there
to bring grain and timber.
The harbor keeper says he will ask the captain
when the rain stops.
The rain has not stopped yet.

Clap when the shutters are fastened tight.
Clap when the hearth has a good red light.
Clap when the bread is warm and round.
Clap when the cat has come indoors.

Rye says the north lights came back last night.
Aunt Sella says she saw lanterns through cloud.
Uncle Marr says he saw nothing but wet glass.
The old net mender says the lights are above the sea,
not on it.
Nobody agrees, and no one has gone to look.

We keep the bowls near the door for travelers.
We keep a spare blanket folded under the bench.
We keep the torch lit by the gate.
When the tide pulls at the harbor stones,
we clap for the ropes, and count them twice.

Tap for the rain on the window pane.
Tap for the wind that walks down the lane.
Tap for the ropes that knock at the quay.
Tap for the boats that rock by the sea.

Rye added a last verse, then crossed it out.
The paper has a crease where the words were.
Mother says the crease will smooth if we press it.
It has not smoothed yet.

Clap when the shutters are fastened tight.
Clap when the hearth has a good red light.
Clap when the bread is warm and round.
Clap when the cat has come indoors.
%%
Weather lore in verse, for Melon
Said by the carters at the Brown Hen each morning in Melon, while the horses drink. Each carter has one verse he made up himself, which the others do not believe. Each verse is one sign and what it means. The lines are short so the horses can keep up.

When the bees come home before noon,
Bring in the washing, the rain comes soon.
When the cat lies flat beside the door,
The heat will stay for three days more.
When the north wind stirs the grain,
Cold will come, and wet with rain.
When morning mist lies on the hay,
The sun will burn it off, and clear the way.
When the frogs sing all night in the reeds,
The water will rise and wash out the weeds.
When the hens go quiet in the heat,
Shade the pen, and bring them wheat.
When the windmill sails stand still,
Carry your water up the hill.
When a swarm goes up into the air,
Stand very still, and keep your hair.
When melons split upon the vine,
Pick them now, and they'll taste fine.

The Longday sun is long and slow.
Work till supper, then you can go.

(Pell says the verse about the cat is right every time. He has tested it on thirty-one cats.)
%%
The first snow
Hesk wrote this for the children who asked if snow could be counted.

First snow on the fence rail,
First snow on the shed.
First snow on the scarecrow's hat,
First snow on the hen house red.

We counted flakes on Tam's coat.
We stopped at twenty, then lost count.
The flakes melted on our fingers, so we counted the white marks on the dark fence instead.

One for the gate, two for the well,
Three for the roof where the dry oats dwell.
Four for the rake left out in the yard,
Five for the nose that is turning hard.

Bring in the rake. Cover the oats. Keep the well clear. The snow is soft now, but the path will be slippery when it freezes. We put straw by the door so the mud stays outside. The hens do not care for straw on the floor. They scratch it into the feed.

At dusk the first snow lay on the field and the road. The children made a little hill by the barn. The smallest child called it a mountain. The tallest child sat on it and made it flat.

First snow on the apple tree,
First snow on the stone.
First snow makes the field look quiet,
Then the geese come home.

There were no geese in the field. There was one old hen on the road. We brought her back before dark.
%%
Winter log: the big house at Northpoint
From the keeper's book, Northpoint, the late years.

Third of Longnight. The big mind came up from the south in a crate on a sledge, and four of us carried it in and set it on its stand. It is the size of a loaf and it hums very low, like a cat asleep. Lantern put her ear near it and said it sounds like the sea. I said it sounds like a kettle. We are both right.

The quickeners are ringed round it and packed with snow and ice from the north field. We change the ice each morning. If we forget, it runs warm and the low hum turns to a buzz, and the buzz is not a good sound.

The mind answers the apprentices through the relay. An apprentice out on the road sends its order up, and the big mind sends back what it means. The small minds in the apprentices can only give one of eight meanings and cannot say they do not know. The big one writes back in words. It asked me for the weather. I told it snow. It said, "Snow here too."

Sixth of Longnight. A letter came up the line from the crossroads house, the big one. It was addressed to the keeper here, and it was polite, and it asked after the foxes. I have not written back. I am not sure what to say to a mind that asks after the foxes. Lantern says say the foxes are well. I will say the foxes are well.

Ninth of Longnight. Snow all day. I went up the ninety rungs to the lamp and lit it and looked north. The sky was doing the thing again, the lights, low and green and moving. They were not ours. I wrote that in the book and came down and put more ice on the mind and sat by the fire.

Eleventh of Longnight. The crossroads mind sent a long letter. It said it had been reading the archive's records and did not understand a passage about the tax rolls of Kettle Ridge. It gave the year. I did not know the answer. I wrote back that I did not know. It said, "Thank you. Nor do I."

Lantern says that is the strangest thing she has ever heard. I said it is only honest. She said, "From a mind?" I said, from anybody. Then we had tea.

(Mira, keeper. Copied at Vell in the year after, the year not given.)
%%
Winter Count for Clank
Hesk made this verse for a counting drill.
One lamp shines over the stair.
Two boots stand by the door.
Three bowls sit on the shelf.
Four sticks wait by the stove.
Five sparks jump in the fire.
Six times the roof gives a groan.
Seven times the wind finds a crack.
Eight steps lead down from the room.
Nine steps lead back up.
Ten fingers fit around a warm cup.
Clank learned the count in one evening.
The next morning he counted the coal twice.
He put the wrong number on the board.
Hesk made him count again, without scolding.
A count is not right because it is neat.
A count is right when the things agree.
Outside, snow covered the mine road.
Inside, the bowls stayed warm.
%%
Rhyme: a year on the farm below Lowmarsh
Wren, healer of Lowmarsh, wrote this long rhyme in autumn for the farm children she visits. It has four parts, one for each season, and a fifth for the mind. They learn it a part at a time, and by the end of the year they say it all.

Thaw: The ice goes out and the frogs come up,
The ditches fill and the lambs are born.
Sowing: Plant the beetroot, plant the oats,
Dig the rows and tie the goats.

Blossom: The bees are busy and the hedge is white,
The marsh is loud with frogs at night.
Longday: The sun is long and the water slow,
The reeds stand high and the herons go.

Reaping: The wheat is gold and the barn is wide,
Bring the carts and the mule beside.
Leaffall: The mill wheel breaks, the cart gets stuck,
That is the autumn, and that's our luck.

Frost: The fog comes up from the marsh at dawn,
The sheep go in and the fires are drawn.
Deepsnow: The world is white and the boardwalk glows,
And the mind in the crystal knows what it knows.

The fifth part is for the mind, and it is for the child who asks how a mind learns.

When a mind in layers is wrong, it feels it at the end. The last layer says: I gave the wrong answer. But the first layer is far away from the answer. It cannot hear.

So the tutor sends a message back. She tells the last layer: you were this wrong. She tells the second last: you helped. She tells the one before that. And the one before that. The message goes back, layer to layer, until the first layer knows what it did. Each one is told its share.

The first layer was not told, before. That is why the early minds could not learn. They had one layer and one answer, and when they were wrong they changed the one layer. Merle of Copperhold saw that you can grow crystals in layers, if you pass the blame back.

When she did, the layers learned, each in its own way. They learned to read numbers on the letters. They learned to sort. They learned things no one had taught them, because the layers taught each other.

I tell this to the children, and they say, "Is that all?" I say, "That is the whole of it, and it took forty years to find." They go away and skip the rhyme. That is how you know it was worth finding.
%%
Counting rhymes and the borrowed horse
Piper's rhymes for the children, who count everything, even their own feet. Count the first rhyme to choose who is it. Count the second to see who gives the horse back.

One for the sheep and two for the cow,
Three for the carter who is late, and now
Four for the bridge with the loose plank on,
Five for the one who is it, and gone.

Borrow the horse, and feed it at dawn,
Water it well, and check its shoes on.
Bring it back on the day it was lent,
Brush it clean, and say what you meant.
Do not race it on the hill, my dear.
The horse does not race. It only pretends, I fear.

Ninety rungs and a stair of stone,
Count them up, and count them down.
Lamp at the top and oil at the foot,
Count the steps, and never stop.

Count the sheep at the top of the lane,
Count them again, and again, and again.
If one is missing, do not fret.
It has gone to the hedge, and the hedge will forget.

One basket, two, and three for the cart,
Four for the apples, and five for the heart.
Six for the ladder, and seven for the tree,
Eight for the wasp, and nine for me.

Four legs, four shoes, four nails each,
Count them all before you reach
The inn at the top of the ridge road,
And tell the stable boy what you have showed.
A nail that moves is a nail to mend.
Take the horse to the forge, and not to a friend.

The stable boy will count the oats,
And the innkeeper will count the coats.
The horse will count the days it stayed,
And the carter counts the bread he has made.

(Piper says the counting rhymes are the first arithmetic most children learn, and the horse rhyme is the first rule in keeping a promise. The children do not know the big word for that. They know the horse.)
%%
Song for a homecoming, Kettle Ridge
Sung when the cart comes up the ridge road at dusk, and everyone runs out of the houses with a lantern each.

Up the ridge the lanterns swing,
The cart is coming, the bells are ringing.
Rook is home from Vell at last,
With ink on his fingers and dust on his coat.

Home, home, the road is done,
The gate is open, the kettle's on.
Home, home, from the far-off hill,
Rook is home, and the day is still.

He copied pages all the year,
Old songs and letters, sharp and clear.
He carried drill boards up the stair,
And answered every question there.

Mother has the bread on the shelf,
Father has a stew for himself.
Tam says Rook should rest a while,
And Pip has counted every stile.

Home, home, the road is done,
The gate is open, the kettle's on.
Home, home, from the far-off hill,
Rook is home, and the day is still.
%%
Dace's verse on the reading mind
Written by Dace, mayor of Three Wells, for the tutor school at Kettle Ridge, to be read out to the older children. They asked him to explain the reading mind in plain words. He did his best. Here is the best of it.

A reading mind sits at its bench in the tutor house at Vell.
Before it lies a page, and on the page the letters run in a line, one after another, like sheep through a gate.
The mind does not see the whole page at once. It sees one letter.
Then it looks back.

It looks back through a window of about sixty letters. It is not a long window, but it is wide enough to hold a word, and most of a sentence.

In that window the mind does not keep every letter with the same care. It takes from each letter before it only the ones that matter for what comes next. A vowel may matter, after a hard consonant. A letter far back may matter very little. The mind learns which ones to keep.

Then it guesses the letter that comes next, and writes the guess down, and checks it against the page. If the guess was wrong, the mind changes a little, the way every drilled mind changes. Then it reads on.

You will say it is only guessing. So it is. But a mind that can guess the next letter of a page well can guess the next word, and then the next sentence, and then a whole letter that sounds like a person wrote it.

That is the new thing. Some of the big minds in the relay houses read this way. They write letters back to us by the relay, and some of those letters a reader cannot tell from a person's. The tutors have stopped asking whether this is clever. They ask whether it is right.

Orla asked, long ago, whether a drilled mind could think. A hidden mind and a person would answer the same questions by letter, and the readers would have to say which was which. We thought that question was far away. It has come back to us in the relay, and it is waiting on the mayor's table at Three Wells.

I do not know the answer. I am a mayor, and I have a town to run. But I have read the letters, and some of them made me laugh, and some made me stop and think about the one who sent them. Ask the tutors what that means. They will say they do not know either, and that they are glad you asked.

Dace
%%
Counting rhyme for the boardwalk
One frog on the boardwalk, two in the reeds,
Three in the water with their heads like beads.
Four by the lantern, five by the door,
Six on the step, and seven on the floor.
Eight on the boat, and nine in the pool.
Ten have hopped home, and the rest sit cool.
(Sung by the children at Lowmarsh on the way to the healing house. Count the frogs once, then count them again, because they hop.)
%%
Skipping rhyme for the Lowmarsh
Sung by the girls on the boardwalk, with a rope turned at each end. The rope goes over the water and the children jump. If you miss, you must sit on the reeds and wait for the next one.

Jump the rope and jump it high,
Over the reeds and the frogs go by.
One for the boat, and two for the mud,
Three for the healer, who wipes off the blood.

Jump the rope and mind your feet,
The boardwalk's long and the water's sweet.
Four for the frogs, and five for the eel,
Six for the boy who fell in the reel.

Jump the rope and count to ten,
Then turn it round and go again.
Seven for the market, eight for the bread,
Nine for the loaf that was left unsaid.

Ten for the lamp at the end of the way,
Lit by the keeper at the end of the day.
Out you go, and down you come,
Whoever misses is the frog's own chum!
%%
Rhyme: Dov and the sheep
Dov the shepherd counts at night,
Counts them in by lantern light.
One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four,
Five sheep, six sheep, through the door.
Seven, eight, and nine, and ten,
Count them out and count again.
Eleven, twelve, and where is Maud?
Maud is in the barley, bored.
Thirteen, fourteen, all are here,
Dov says, "Bed. The north is clear."
(A counting rhyme from the sheep farms north of Northpoint. Maud is always in the barley.)
%%
Rhyme: the tutor on the road
Clap, clap, who is there?
A tutor with a basket and a chair.
Clap, clap, what has she brought?
A bag of crystals, newly bought.
Clap, clap, where does she stay?
In the barn, in the hay,
With the spiders on the beam,
And a bowl of porridge and cream.
Clap, clap, when does she go?
When the morning brings the snow.
Clap, clap, who will say
Where she's gone, and where she'll stay?
(A clapping rhyme from the farm outside Northpoint. A tutor came through this autumn on her way north, and the children made the rhyme the same night. Lyle says the tutor laughed at it. Lyle says she also asked a great many questions about the lights.)
%%
Rye's Autumn Round
Apple, apple, off the tree.
One for Mother, one for me.
One for Sella, one for Marr.
One to take to the harbor bar.

Step to the left and clap twice.
Step to the right and clap once.
Turn by the rain barrel.
Jump over the broom.

Again, but slow this time.
The ground is wet by the wall.
Again, and mind the loose stone.
Again, and bring your scarf.

Rye made the round for the children
at the house where the lane meets the harbor path.
We play it after the apples are gathered,
when the small baskets are empty
and the large basket waits in the pantry.

Aunt Sella says a round should end at home.
Uncle Marr says it should end at the table.
They argue while peeling carrots.
The cat sits on the peels.
Rye gives the cat a name in the rhyme,
but the cat does not answer.

Apple, apple, off the tree.
One for Mother, one for me.
One for Sella, one for Marr.
One to take to the harbor bar.

The sea has been rough on some evenings.
The boats knock at their posts.
The pier lamps shine through rain,
and the wet stones hold the light.
We count the lamps from the kitchen window.
One by the dock, two by the quay,
three at the end of the long pier.
If the rain blurs them, we count again.

A woman bringing fish said the water
had a bitter taste near the harbor mouth.
The baker said rain had filled his well with leaves.
The keeper said the well was good.
Mother says we should not make a rhyme
about a thing we have not tasted.
Rye says then we must taste the sea.
Nobody lets Rye do that.

When the wind turns cold, we close the shutters.
When the rain comes hard, we move the apples.
When a knock comes late, we look through the glass.
If it is a neighbor, we open the door.
If it is a zombie, we keep the torch lit
and wait until the lane is quiet.

Apple, apple, off the tree.
One for Mother, one for me.
One for Sella, one for Marr.
One to take to the harbor bar.

In the morning, Rye found a red leaf
caught in the gate latch.
We put it in the old book to dry.
It made a small mark on the page.
%%
Weather lore for spring, in verse
Piper taught these to the children of the farm, who had been getting the weather wrong for years and were glad to be corrected in rhyme.

When the frogs sing loud at night,
Rain will come before the light.
When the bees fly low by the hive,
Bring the hens in, and keep them alive.
When the windmill squeaks and turns all day,
The wind has settled, and it will stay.
When the ridge road mud is deep and wide,
Walk on the stone edge, and keep your stride.
When the blossom falls like snow on the pond,
The apples will come, and the bees grow fond.
When the sun goes red at the set of the day,
Tomorrow's morning will be fair and gray.
When the frost is on the lamp room pane,
Keep your torch lit, and walk the lane.
When the cat sits on the warm side of the stove,
Put the kettle on, and let her move.
When the morning mist is thick on the green,
Expect a clear noon, and the sun to be seen.
When the oats are high and the wheat is green,
The harvest is coming, as it has always been.

Piper says the weather is not in the rhymes. The rhymes are only good for remembering it. Look at the sky first, and then sing.
%%
Clapping rhyme: the late boat
Clap, clap, the boat is late,
Clap, clap, the lamp must wait.
Clap on your knee and clap on your hand,
The boat is out and far from land.

Light the lamp on the harbor wall,
Ring the bell so they hear it all.
Fog on the water, wind gone still,
Which way home? Nobody will tell.

Clap, clap, the cat on the quay
Counts the boats that come from the sea.
One, two, three, and the fourth not here,
Hold your breath, then give a cheer!

Four! Four! The fourth comes in,
Clap, clap, clap, let the song begin.

(Ada's mother sang this on the quay at Saltreach when the fishing boats were late. The children clap, and hold their breath at the fourth. The fourth always comes home. That is how the rhyme goes, and nobody at Sallowfield has asked it to go any other way.)
%%
Skipping rhyme: the shepherd's year
A skipping rhyme from the sheep farms outside Northpoint. Dov the shepherd made it up one summer evening, to go with a rope that the children had found in the barn. It has twelve verses, one for each month. You skip one verse per jump. If you trip, you start from Thaw.

Thaw, Thaw, the lambs are new,
Sowing, Sowing, the barley grew.
Blossom, Blossom, the hills are white,
Swarm, Swarm, the bees take flight.

Longday, Longday, the sun does not set,
Melon, Melon, the shearing's yet.
Reaping, Reaping, the hay is in,
Apple, Apple, the wool is thin.

Leaffall, Leaffall, the wind blows cold,
Frost, Frost, the sheep are old.
Longnight, Longnight, the dark comes down,
Deepsnow, Deepsnow, the snow comes round.

Round again, round again, jump the rope,
Thaw, Thaw, we live in hope.
Round again, round again, never stop,
Thaw, Thaw, the lambs hop and hop.

Note by Dov: the children can skip it nine times before they fall. I once saw a girl skip it for an hour. She was Hettie. I do not know who taught her to be so stubborn. It was probably me.

The shepherd's year is simple: lambs in Thaw, shearing in Longday, hay in Reaping, and in Frost the sheep come down off the hill. In Longnight we do not go out after dark. In Deepsnow we count our blessings and our wood.

On a clear night in Longnight you can see the lamps on the Northpoint tower, high up, and know that someone is awake. That is a comfort to a shepherd. I have never met the keeper. But I wave.
%%
Skipping rhyme: the seven houses
Skip to the first house, skip to the last,
Count who lives there, and count them fast.

Lorn, Lorn, at the first door,
How many cheeses have you in store?
One cheese, two cheese, three cheese, four...

Lise, Lise, with a cat on each knee,
How many cats have you? Let me see.
One cat, two cats, three cats, four...

Rye, Rye, by the hives on the hill,
How many bees are asleep and still?
Hush now, hush now, one, two, three...

Dov, Dov, with a page in your hand,
How many times in the Archive's land
Is your name written down? Let me see.
One name, two names, three names, four.
The Archive has them. It kept them all.

The school, the school, on the sledding hill,
How many icicles, count them still?
Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three...

Bramble, Bramble, on the roof so high,
How many ladders to reach the sky?
One ladder, two ladders, three ladders, four...

Ada, Ada, at the end of the lane,
How many songs will you sing again?
One song, two songs, three songs, four...

Now round again, and don't be slow,
Seven houses, and off we go!
Skip to the first house, skip to the last,
Count who lives there, and count them fast.

(A skipping rhyme of Sallowfield, made by the children and added to by Ada. The seven houses are Lorn's, Lise's, Rye's, Dov's, the school's, Ada's, and the goat's, though the goat only has a roof. Each house gets a turn. You skip until you trip, and the house where you tripped must give you a cup of cider.)
%%
Diary: spring at the hamlet
This is the diary of Fen, who is not yet one year old, so her mother writes it for her.

Third of Thaw. Fen saw snow for the first time and did not like it. She cried. Then she liked it and tried to eat it.

Twelfth of Thaw. Fen sat up by herself for the whole of a song. Everyone clapped. She looked surprised.

First of Sowing. The beets went in. Fen watched from the fence in her basket. Pip dropped the seed box twice and Tam said, Pip, and Pip said nothing, because Pip is an apprentice and does not talk, and just picked up the box.

Ninth of Sowing. The miller's child Fen is not to be confused with our Fen, says mother, but they are both small and loud, so it is fine.

Twentieth of Sowing. Fen crawled to the door and out into the yard and was found by the well, which is not good. The well has a lid now. The lid has a latch. The latch is too high for Fen, for now.

Second of Blossom. The apple trees at Ambrook are white, says the peddler. Fen has never seen an apple tree. We will take her when she is bigger.

Fifteenth of Blossom. Fen laughed at a chicken for a long time. Nobody knows why. The chicken did not mind.

Twenty-first of Blossom. Fen stood up alone, took one step, sat down hard, and thought about it. She is thinking about it still.

(From the hamlet below Kettle Ridge. The mother is the baker. She says the diary is for Fen when Fen is big enough to be embarrassed by it.)
%%
Rhyme: counting the Long Road
One stone, two stone, three stone, four,
The waymark stands at every door.
Five stone, six stone, seven, eight,
The inn is near, the road is straight.
Nine stone, ten stone, bring a stone,
Leave it on the pillar, all alone.
The pile grows high, the pile grows wide,
And every traveler has been inside.
%%
Tilly's Market Rhyme
Written by Tilly, midwife

At the Lowmarsh market, count what you see.
One boat by the boardwalk, two bees by a tree.
Three baskets of carrots, four fish on a board.
Five little frogs sitting near the ford.

Six pots of clay, and seven jars bright.
Eight wool caps hanging in rows by the light.
Nine apples from Ambrook, red on the stall.
Ten muddy boots by the market hall.

Now count them again, but count from the end.
Ten boots that are muddy, nine apples to lend.
Eight caps of wool, and seven jars bright.
Six pots of clay in the last of the light.

The fish weir is mended with reed and with twine.
The boat house tally is clear and in line.
A child asks if frogs will be sold with the fish.
"No," says old Pell. "They have made no such wish."

Then the bell calls the market to close for the day.
The boats turn for home, and the buyers walk away.
%%
Flood rhyme: water up the lane
Water up the lane, water up the lane,
Carry the children, carry the grain.
Put the sacks on the bench, and the bench on the stone,
The river is coming, and the river is known.

Boats in the square, and a boat on the roof,
The baker's loaves are dry, and the cook is aloof.
A melon went floating down the lane,
And the pig swam after it, and was happy again.

The fish came up the square in the flood,
And the fishers caught them with a bucket and a thud.
The children stood on the wall and sang the whole day long,
And the river sang back in a voice that was strong.

Up the lane and down again,
Water goes where water can.
Up the lane and down the square,
Put the children on the stair.

Water up the lane, water up the lane,
Carry the children, carry the grain.
Put the sacks on the bench, and the bench on the stone,
The river is coming, and the river is known.

(Sung on the quay when the river comes up the lane. Everyone in Saltreach knows the river, and everybody sings it anyway, because the river likes to be sung to, and nobody has ever checked.)
