Under the Hill(13)

“Got me, but the town paid the princely sum of thirteen dollars for it in 1792, and by 1798 they even had a bass viol.”

“You’re making this up. Aren’t you?”

“Nope. Read Judd sometime.”

Meg recognized the name as the author of a monumental history about the town of Hadley, published in the nineteenth century. “Seth, when do you find time to learn all this stuff?” Meg said plaintively. She could never catch up. She couldn’t remember reading to the end of a book in months—either she had no time or she fell into bed exhausted, so there was no way to study the history of Granford. Maybe come winter she’d try again.

“I like old buildings, and I’ve been passing by most of these all my life. You’ll learn.”

“Yeah, as soon as I have a spare year or two. Are you ready to head out?”

“Sure. I think I’ll leave Max here—there’s too much interesting stuff to smell at the Historical Society.”

It took only a few minutes to drive from Meg’s house to the center of Granford, which still boasted its original town green ringed with maple trees. The church—which Meg now knew was the “new” one, not the original one—anchored one end of the green, with a parish house and then the Historical Society on the slope below. A pharmacy-slash–general store occupied space across the street, and up toward one end, on the highway, loomed the ornate Victorian town hall. The relatively new restaurant, Gran’s, had moved into what had been a nineteenth-century home at the top of the hill, with a nice view of the green, as Meg knew well. There was little traffic.

Gail Selden was sitting on the Historical Society building’s steps waiting, and stood up when they pulled into the church parking lot. Knowing that there might be changes coming, Meg studied the building quickly: single story, low-pitched roof, two massive granite steps leading up to the entrance. And the majority of the town’s population had squeezed inside? Not a very large town back then.

When she saw them, Gail called out, “Hey, Seth. Hi, Meg—did you get dragged along?”

Meg smiled at her. “No, he described what you wanted to do and I had to see for myself. He said you plan to dig under the building? There’s no basement?”

“Looks like it,” Gail replied cheerfully, “and no, they never included a basement. As for the project, our board is on board, so to speak, so all we need is the go-ahead on the structural issues, which is where Seth comes in.”

“You talk to those excavation contractors I told you about?” Seth asked.

“We’ve talked to a couple, and they offered two options for the excavation process. I wanted to ask you which one makes more sense.”

“Let’s go inside,” Seth said. Gail opened the door with an old key, and they followed her through it.

“Wow,” Meg said when they’d entered the main room. “You’ve cleared out a lot of stuff since the last time I was here. The first time I saw the place, there were stuffed birds and animals all over the place. What happened to them?”

Gail grinned. “Uh, let us say they retired. The local taxidermist left something to be desired, and they were molting or shedding all over the place.”

“I can imagine,” Meg smiled back. “You’re really serious about going through with this plan?”

“We sure are! Let’s sit at the table in the kitchen exhibit—it’s open now that we’ve stowed away some of the tools and antique appliances.” Gail led the way to the table, where she had already laid out what looked like architectural drawings. She waited until they were seated before beginning.

“Seth, you can probably follow this stuff a lot better than I can, but as I understand it, the idea is to shore up the building from beneath with leveling jacks and steel beams—”

“Assuming your substrate can support them,” Seth interrupted.

“Of course,” Gail said quickly, “and we’ll check that out first—or our contractor will, I guess. And then we dig out the soil to a depth of ten feet, which gives us space to pour a slab down there and still have adequate headroom.”

“Go on,” Seth prompted. “You know where your HVAC system will go? And what provisions have you made for moisture control?”

Gail held up both hands. “Seth, I know only the big picture. You’ll have to talk to the architect and the contractor about that stuff. But they’ve both done jobs like this before. I’ve talked to several of their clients, and I haven’t heard any complaints.”

“What’s the plan for removing the soil?” Seth asked.

“We’re still debating about that. There’s good old-fashioned manual labor—a bunch of folk with shovels, which would be historically correct but a lot of work. Or we see if we can fit a baby Bobcat excavator in there, once we get it started. Or somebody mentioned using what they called a vacuum extractor—like you stick a big hose down into it, and the dirt is sucked right out and then deposited in a dump truck or even left on-site. I don’t know what you think about that, but it sounds like fun to watch.”

“Let me ask around. I have heard that it’s effective in a small, contained area, and getting rid of the dirt immediately would be a big plus. Both make sense in your case. When do you want to start?”

“This week.”