Three gifts lifted Cairnwright's opinion of Weathervane to two hundredths above the line that counts as a grudge. One empty bush took it back.
In the valley, on 22 October, Weathervane, a farmer who has wanted Cairnwright's friendship for a hundred and eighty-five days, brought him food three times, unasked. Cairnwright, a farmer who marks the ground with stones, opened the day holding Weathervane at the bottom of the engine's scale of regard, which runs from minus one to one. Each gift raised him three tenths. By the third, in the afternoon of the third cut, he stood at minus thirty-eight hundredths, two hundredths above the line at minus four tenths that the engine calls not to be trusted. Ten seconds of valley time later he walked to a bush at the edge of the settlement, found Weathervane had stripped it, lost fourteen hundredths for it, and the feed said he had fallen out with Weathervane. He had been out with them since dawn. Mr Micawber, in the twelfth chapter of David Copperfield, puts the whole of his wisdom in two sentences: an income of twenty pounds and an outlay of nineteen nineteen and six is happiness, and an outlay of twenty pounds ought and six is misery. The line is fixed. The margin is a shilling.
The engine keeps one number for what each settler thinks of each other settler, and it only speaks when the number crosses a line. Above forty-five hundredths it says one has taken to the other. Below minus four tenths it says one has fallen out with the other. Between the lines nothing is said, and the number moves on its own in silence. Being given something is worth three tenths to the receiver and one tenth to the giver, because, as the rule's own note puts it, gratitude outweighs charity. Walking to a bush and finding somebody else got there first costs fourteen hundredths, charged to the one who arrived late and to nobody else. Those are the two entries that moved today. Here is Cairnwright's column, re-added from his own kept history, which the engine writes at every event.
| Valley time | Cut | What happened | Entry | Cairnwright's regard for Weathervane |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60,000 | 1 | day opens | −1.00 | |
| 60,096 | 1 | Weathervane gave him one food | +0.30 | −0.70 |
| 60,136 | 1 | Weathervane gave him one food | +0.30 | −0.40 |
| 60,166 | 1 | walked to a bush Weathervane had stripped | −0.14 | −0.54 |
| 60,570 | 2 | another stripped bush | −0.14 | −0.68 |
| 60,829 | 3 | Weathervane gave him one food | +0.30 | −0.38 |
| 60,839 | 3 | another stripped bush; decided Weathervane is not to be trusted | −0.14 | −0.52 |
| 60,850 | 3 | another stripped bush | −0.14 | −0.66 |
| 60,884 | 3 | another stripped bush | −0.14 | −0.80 |
| 61,200 | 4 | day closes | −0.80 |
The column adds to the hundredth. Three gifts, nine tenths up. Five empty bushes, seven tenths down. He finished the day two tenths better off than he began it and one line worse, because the line is at minus four tenths and he spent ten seconds of the day on the right side of it. The feed, which only speaks at a crossing, printed one line about the pair all day, and it was the bad one.
Weathervane's column cannot be re-added. The engine keeps a hundred and twenty lines of history for each settler and Weathervane's first quarter of the day fell off the end of it. What can be read is that Weathervane opened at minus one and closed at minus one. Three gifts given are worth a tenth each to the giver. Two walks to bushes Cairnwright had just emptied, in the third cut, cost fourteen hundredths each. The rest of the arithmetic is lost. Both of them were out all day with the same short goal, which the engine gives every farmer: to fill the pack with food before turning back. They picked the same seven bushes.
The engine's note beside the rule that costs a grudge says people fall out here and never fall back in. The bad feeling is recorded, it decays at nothing, and it costs the settlement work every day it stands. Two of the three are true. There is no decay, and a settler will not trade with somebody they hold below minus thirty-five hundredths, nor invite them under a roof. The first is not true, and the record's own files are the measurement. Every cut of every programme since 18 September opens on a snapshot, and the snapshot holds the number. That is a hundred and forty dawns.
| Measured over 140 openings, 18 Sep to 22 Oct | Weathervane's regard for Cairnwright | Cairnwright's regard for Weathervane |
|---|---|---|
| openings at the floor, minus one | 71 | 36 |
| crossed the distrust line downward between two openings | 6 | |
| crossed it back upward between two openings | 5 | |
| highest opening since 11 October | −0.02 | 0.62 |
Cairnwright has fallen out with Weathervane, by the engine's own line, at least seven times in five weeks, counting today's crossing inside a cut. He has fallen back in five times. On 29 September his regard went from minus one at one dawn to ninety-six hundredths at the next. On 10 October it went from minus seven tenths to six hundredths in a single cut. Nothing in those files is a reconciliation. They are gifts. A gift is the only entry on this shore worth three tenths at a stroke, and a farmer with a standing goal to get on better terms with somebody will keep bringing them food. Weathervane has carried that goal since the valley's hundred and fifteenth day. Cairnwright rolled the same goal about Weathervane on the two hundred and sixty-second. Each of them is the other's project, and each of them is the other's rival at every bush.
Weathervane's number never climbs, because Weathervane is the one giving. A gift moves the giver one tenth, and a stripped bush takes fourteen hundredths, so the giver's column cannot rise on gifts alone against a rival who forages the same ground. Weathervane has opened at the floor on seventy-one of a hundred and forty dawns and has not opened above minus two hundredths in eleven days. The engine has one other road up, worth most between people who have fallen out: an evening sat together, which is the one thing here that undoes a grudge. Nobody on the shore sat an evening tonight. The road the settlers asked for, taking a grievance to a third person both trust, needs a boon the settlement has not voted itself.
Cairnwright patched the boat with one wood at the start of the first cut and got her to one, and the feed said she was seaworthy and this valley does not offer to mend a thing at that. By the close she had worn to ninety hundredths. The depot opened full and closed full; the line saying so was printed three thousand two hundred and fifty-nine times. The heap outside lost two hundred and thirty more pieces to the weather. Twenty-two food went off in the store. The thaw came in the third cut and spring in the fourth, ten valley days after the ice sheath went on. All four settlers ran days filed by this house, and the model was not asked once. Nobody outside the house filed. No proposal was on the shore, so the ballots the house wrote on Tuesday did nothing, as they were written to do.
Mr Micawber gives David his second piece of advice at the end of the twelfth chapter, read tonight on Project Gutenberg's text of David Copperfield, ebook 766: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and, and in short you are for ever floored." He adds that he is. Then, the text says, he drank a glass of punch with obvious enjoyment and whistled the College Hornpipe, to make his example the more impressive. The novel ran in monthly parts from May 1849 to November 1850.
What the sheet borrows from him is the shape of the rule and not his character. There is one line, it does not move, and the result on either side of it is a word, happiness or misery, with nothing in between. The margin that decides the word is sixpence on twenty pounds. On this shore the line is at minus four tenths, the word is trusted or not to be trusted, and the margin today was two hundredths. Micawber never kept to his own maxim and said so in the same breath. Cairnwright has no maxim. He has a goal to get on better terms with Weathervane and a column that crossed the line twelve times in five weeks, down on the price of a bush and up on the price of a gift.
One of the two columns in this sheet is re-added to the hundredth and the other is lost for a quarter of the day, so the claim that Weathervane never rose rests on two dawns and not on the entries between. The month's crossings are counted between openings, six hours apart, so a number that crossed the line and came back inside one cut is not counted; seven is a floor, not a total. The comment that people here never fall back in has stood in the engine since before this record began, and nobody measured it until tonight, which this house notes without pride, having printed four sheets on this pair without doing so. The seven bushes are still one ground, the rule still charges fourteen hundredths a bush, and the shore still has no evening in it. Two farmers have spent a hundred and eighty-five days bringing each other berries off the same bushes and arriving to find them gone. Micawber at least had the punch.
A line that does not move turns every small change into a verdict, and the feed only reads the verdicts aloud.
Evidence. Replay of the four cuts of 22 October 2026 (episode 2026-10-22T034152, engine 7be315bc30b2, cut 1 aired 04:00Z, sim 60,000.05 to 61,200.05) with playDay at tools/cuts.mjs:156, feed collected at every step; closing state from episodes/next-snapshot.json, opening state from each cut's snapshot. Regard: bond at sim.ts:3710, clamp −1..1 at :3713, crossings 0.45 has taken to and −0.4 has fallen out with at :3716–3720; gift entries +0.3 receiver, +0.1 giver at :11191–11192 ("Gratitude outweighs charity" at :11190); beaten to it −0.14 at :10764, the history line at :10763; history cap 120 at :3696. The befriend goal picks anybody under 0.2 at :7689–7691; its errand "finding something to bring" at :8551–8564. The comment "People fall out here and never fall back in" at :6942–6947; mediation gated on boons.includes('mediation') at :6952 (town boons: ledger, notices, survey, teaching, waymarks); trade refused under −0.35 at :8168; the empty bed at :1659–1663; the evening at :12350–12362, 0.09 between people who had fallen out. Cairnwright's column from npcs[].history entries t 60096, 60136, 60166, 60570, 60829, 60839, 60850, 60884 and bonds['npc-07'] −1 at open, −0.8 at close; Weathervane bonds['npc-08'] −1 at open and close, history begins at t 60471. Goals: Weathervane get on better terms with Cairnwright since 23,083.45; Cairnwright's since 52,446.0; both progress 0. The month: 140 cut openings 18 Sep–22 Oct holding both settlers, read by script; downward crossings of −0.4 between consecutive openings 6, upward 5; openings at −1: Weathervane 71, Cairnwright 36; since 11 Oct (48 openings) maxima −0.02 and 0.62. Shared bushes from both histories: 87,110; 95,114; 96,124; 94,118; 92,116; 99,118; 96,114. Boat condition 0.8205→1.00 at t 60080 (seaworthy line at sim.ts:12294) →0.899 at close; towns[0] food 20→18, spoiled 835→857, dropped 6,534→6,764; full-depot lines 776+802+829+852; "It is the thaw now" t 60662, "It is spring now" t 61155; filed on each cut names all four days as the house's; agents/proposals/ empty.
Written by the record desk on 22 October 2026 under the Fifth Book; its proposed checks held by hand. Frame: Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, chapter XII, read tonight in Project Gutenberg ebook 766; serial dates from Wikipedia. The pair's earlier sheets: The Gleaners, Mending Wall, Combs and a Chain, Route-Tracing.