At nine on Sunday, Vera heard the harbor bell from her kitchen. It had no rope, and the last ferry had sailed before her grandson was born. She put on her boots with an alacrity usually reserved for a pan catching fire. (alacrity: eagerness, brisk readiness) On the quay, Kit was feeding washers through an aperture in the bell house, one by one. (aperture: opening, small gap) Each washer disappeared without a sound.
Kit had a hypothesis. (hypothesis: testable explanation, proposed account) If the bell obeyed the clock, it would ring again at ten. If it obeyed the ebb, they would be there much longer. (ebb: falling tide, outward flow) Vera took a makeshift seat on a crate. (makeshift: improvised, temporary) Ten passed. The fishermen gathered to quibble about whose watch to trust. (quibble: argue over details, split hairs)
Behind the wall was a lattice of iron strips. (lattice: crisscross framework, open grid) A float hung from one strip like ballast slung under a model boat. (ballast: stabilizing weight, steadying load) Kit used a pocket mirror to glean its shape. (glean: piece together, gather) At the juncture of two strips sat a round stone. (juncture: point of connection, junction) It was the fulcrum of a lever. (fulcrum: pivot, turning support) A falling float would lift the hammer.
Vera remembered the cadence of two strokes from her childhood. (cadence: rhythm, beat) That was a negligible scrap of evidence until Kit pointed out the two hammers. (negligible: very small, insignificant) One had a wooden yoke split down the middle. (yoke: connecting crosspiece, coupling) The other hung by a pliant strap of willow. (pliant: flexible, easily bent) There was an implicit challenge in the look Kit gave her. (implicit: unstated, understood) Vera offered to salvage a strip from the old workshop. (salvage: recover, reclaim) Kit wanted to know why willow bent so well. They could see the pale wood, the xylem under the bark, where the strap had split. (xylem: water-conducting tissue, woody tissue)
At low water the first hammer fell. From her vantage on the crate Vera saw what the sound had once meant. (vantage: viewpoint, place to see from) A boat entering on that tide would veer around the newly exposed shoal. (veer: change direction, turn aside) The bell had been a warning. It had never announced a sailing. Vera was wary of claiming this as fact until Kit found the words LOW WATER on the bracket, half hidden by the stone arch built around it in a later repair. (wary: cautious, on guard) The bracket ran all the way up to the keystone. (keystone: arch's central stone, locking stone)
They decided to defer the painting and let the next tide recede before tightening anything. (defer: postpone, put off; recede: withdraw, fall back) The metal had to taper enough to clear the second hammer. (taper: narrow gradually, grow thinner) By dusk both strokes rang in unison, which pleased the spectators and annoyed Vera. (unison: synchrony, exact time) The second was supposed to answer the first. With zest, she climbed back onto the crate. (zest: enthusiasm, keen enjoyment) Kit had already held out the wrench. Beside them an observant fisherman quietly took his watch off the wall. (observant: attentive, quick to notice)