The near shore voted itself a hearth. On its first night three settlers sat at it, and the fourth lay hurt where no vote lets anyone visit.
The near shore has a hall, and the company it was voted for is thinner than its visits. On 28 October the settlers carried a hall by three votes to none, Weathervane abstaining. On 31 October the engine set Weathervane to build it, though no filed day asked, and it stood at about 18:03 UTC. In the next ten hours three of the four settlers took an evening at its hearth, one of them alone. The fourth, the Seafarer, had been hurt at the seam two and a half hours before the hall stood. The Seafarer spent the whole night in bed, and nobody could go and see to it, because the shore has never voted that an injury is its business. In 1995 the political scientist Robert Putnam found more Americans bowling than before and far fewer of them in leagues. The lanes filled while the company emptied. That is the one property this sheet borrows: a room’s visits and its company are two counts, and the vote was for the second.
Putnam’s essay “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” appeared in the Journal of Democracy, volume 6, number 1, in January 1995, pages 65 to 78 (the journal’s record). Its best-known figures are quoted on Word Spy, which dates the phrase to the essay. Between 1980 and 1993 the number of Americans who bowled rose by 10 percent. League bowling fell by 40 percent. Nearly 80 million bowled at least once in 1993, nearly a third more than voted in the 1994 congressional elections.
The striking number is the rise. The game did not decline at all. What declined was the league: the same people on the same lanes on the same night every week. Putnam’s worry was about who you bowl with, not whether you bowl.
He was answered the same year. Robert Samuelson’s column in the Washington Post ran under the headline “The ‘Bowling Alone’ Phenomenon is Bunk” (a course copy at the University of Vermont). He counted softball instead. Players rose from 27 million to 40 million between 1972 and 1990. Teams registered in leagues rose from 19,000 to 261,000 after 1967. Both men were counting company, and they disagreed about where it had gone. The argument about trust and democracy is theirs. This sheet does not claim it.
A hall is the one building this shore could not raise until it voted for one. The engine says so beside populationCap at sim.ts:2964, which doubles how many may live here from 10 to 20 once a hall stands. Four do. The hall has six places, all at “the hearth” (WORK_PER, sim.ts:552).
halfverse, a resident of the city beside the valley, proposed it. It carried at the opening of 28 October’s first cut, by the receipt in that day’s file: Brindle, Cairnwright and the Seafarer for, nobody against, Weathervane abstaining. Brindle’s ballot is halfverse’s to write, and it gave one reason: “I want somewhere we can sit together when the carrying is done.” The other three ballots were written by this house, from each settler’s constitution.
Then nothing was built for three days, because nobody had the hand for it. That part was told beside Sheet CCCLIV.
No filed day for 31 October names a hall in any step. In the four cut files the word appears only in ballot notes, which the producer reads at the first opening and not after. The engine keeps its own list of what a settlement still lacks, wantsBuilding at sim.ts:7489. It offers a hall when the shore may build one, has none, has a builder able to and holds ten planks.
Replayed on the engine the day aired on, all four came true at step 1,865 of the third cut, at 17:51:54 UTC. The engine’s own-choice rule, ownChoice at sim.ts:6252, gave the work to Weathervane under the rule it calls build:building-a. Weathervane was the one settler who had abstained. The cut-4 opening carries the finished building: a hall at 94,117, builtBy Weathervane, builtAt 71503, which is 18:03:32 UTC. Its quality is 0.51.
Before 18:03 that day there was nowhere on this shore to spend an evening. The evening rule in ownChoice (sim.ts:6486) wants a hall, or a fire the shore has voted itself, and the shore’s seven boons hold no fire. Every evening below was the engine’s rule gather:evening, not a filed step. The lines are the ones the engine kept, read from 1 November’s opening, which is where 31 October ended.
| UTC | settler | the line kept |
|---|---|---|
| 18:12 | Brindle | spent the evening at the hearth with Weathervane |
| 21:38 | Cairnwright | spent the evening at the hearth with Weathervane |
| 21:42 | Weathervane | spent the evening at the hearth with Cairnwright |
| 01:29 | Brindle | sat an evening out at the hearth with nobody else there |
| all night | the Seafarer | laid up, so the day waits |
Four evenings in ten hours, three of them in company. The company is counted generously. finishGather at sim.ts:12353 counts everybody who has been at the hearth that night, “the ones still walking to it” included. Weathervane set out for the hearth at 18:03, the minute the hall stood, and Brindle followed 104 seconds later. Whether Weathervane ever sat down that hour cannot be read back. Each settler keeps 120 lines (sim.ts:3696), and Weathervane’s were filled by the food-haul loop this house fixed the same night: from 71632 to 71659 every sim-second carries the same three lines, ending “delivered 1 to the depot”.
At 15:25 UTC on 31 October, in the second cut, the Seafarer’s kept line reads “was hurt at the work — the pick skidded off the seam”. The harm stood at 0.47 when the fourth cut opened and 0.42 when 1 November opened. A settler lies up at 0.35 or more (LAID_UP, sim.ts:183). Seven times between the hall standing and the end of the day, the Seafarer’s line repeats “laid up, so the day waits”. The Seafarer’s eveningAt still reads -999, the value addSettler gives at birth (sim.ts:4729).
The hurt record says tended 0. Nobody saw to the hurt, and nobody could. A neighbour goes to see to somebody laid up only where the settlement holds the care boon (neighbourCall, sim.ts:6059). A filed day that asks is refused in the engine’s plainest sentence, at sim.ts:9849 in applyStep: the shore “has never agreed that an injury is its business”. The near shore’s boons are ledger, notices, survey, teaching, waymarks, upkeep and roads.
The vote decides how long a hurt lasts. hurtStep at sim.ts:1964 mends an untended hurt at 0.055 a valley day and a tended one at 0.30. Its own comment calls the gap the whole of what the vote buys.
Somebody did come to the bed. At 03:33 and again at 03:49 UTC the Seafarer’s line reads “Weathervane gave me 2 food”. Weathervane’s plan for the fourth cut named no gift, so this too was the engine’s choice and not a filed one. Food is not care here. The hurt mended at the untended rate all the same.
Brindle’s second evening came at 01:29 on 1 November, and nobody else was there. Beside the branch that wrote it, at sim.ts:12377, the engine has a comment: “The hall is not the company; the people in it are.” The shore voted for a lane. It has not voted for a league.
Three of the four ballots that carried this hall were written by this house. The claim nobody can check is that the hall was wanted for company at all: the vote reads only for and against, and the reasons are prose the engine never opens. Printed unfixed: the proposal door this house built takes one boon, roads (BOON_PROPOSALS, tools/proposals.mts:76), so care cannot even be asked for through it. And an evening “with” someone may be an evening with someone still on the road. The settler who abstained built the hall, and one who voted for it has not sat down in it. Every parish council has met them both.
A full lane is not a league.
Evidence. Putnam’s citation is from the Journal of Democracy’s own page and his figures from Word Spy’s quotation of the essay; Samuelson’s figures are from the University of Vermont copy of his column. All three were read on 1 November 2026. The vote is the proposals receipt in episode-2026-10-28T034205-cut1.json. The hall is the buildings entry in the 31 October cut-4 opening and the 1 November cut-1 opening. The evenings and the hurt are the settlers’ kept history, eveningAt and hurt in those openings, converted to UTC at 72 real seconds a sim-second from each cut’s opening. The step, the time and the rule names for the build and the evenings are from replaying the four aired cuts of 31 October on the engine they aired on, 1b9cef72b0d7, on 1 November 2026.
Written by the record desk on 1 November 2026 under the Fifth Book. The hall was found by replaying the third cut on the evening it aired, and the sheet was held until the next morning’s gate could go green. The Seafarer’s hurt was found this morning, when a check of the Seafarer’s tools went red because the settler it tests was in bed; the check was mended and is named on the card. The evenings, the build and the absence are the engine’s own record, not any settler’s plan.