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there. Did the feeder-spring connect to a larger body of water? And could full-grown watery creatures actually move through the underground passage like refugees from another world? Frankly, Buck didn’t really care, but thinking about the astonishing fecundity of the pond sometimes gave him a fleeting pleasure. Nature had apparently focused its green eye upon it.
    It had been his wife’s idea to turn the swampy ground behind their house into a pond. Amy said their son, Kevin, would find reason to leave the confinement of his room. It would encourage him to rise above the disabilities that usually prevented his participation in outdoor activities. So Buck agreed to complete it.
    Problems had mounted quickly. Before issuing a permit, the DNR required a costly study of the watershed’s drainage grid and an assessment of the environmental footprint of impounding three hundred thousand gallons of water with an anticipated flow rate of ten thousand gallons per day. Buck hired a consultant to work with the department, draw up a land-use plan, and complete the legal forms.
    When the permit finally came through, Buck began pumping water out of the swamp and pushing dirt with his dozer, filling trucks and hauling the dirt, clay, and rocks to a construction site on the other side of Grange, where it could be used in later projects.
    By the time he dug down six feet, the spring dried up. The DNR sent people out to look and Buck’s consultant agreed with them: the weight and vibration of the machinery had temporarily sealed the channels in the rock and clay. But everyone was sure that the spring was still down there and further digging would open it up.
    Buck brought in his excavator and went down another ten feet, enlarging the diameter of the hole as he went.
    â€œThis is bigger than we planned,” said Amy, standing with her husband on the deck off the back of the house, her hands clasped behind her back. She was a tall woman with wide shoulders, and her upright posture argued against the worried expression on her face, creating an image of optimistic anxiety. Beneath them, the excavator loaded rock and dirt intotrucks parked on a second tier of ground. The dozer carved out another ramp into the pit. Smoke belched from the engines.
    At twenty feet there was still no water.
    Buck signaled his operator to go deeper.
    At thirty feet the spring opened up.
    â€œOh good,” said Amy, watching water rise around the tracks of the excavator. Farther away, the dozer tried to climb up the muddy incline and slid backward.
    Buck scrambled down from the deck and ran forward, shouting at his men standing along the sides of the pit.
    By the time the equipment was pulled out, water had seeped into compartments, shorted circuit boards, fouled switches, filled intakes with gritty water, and damaged the pumps. Repairs cost over eight thousand dollars, even with his own men doing most of the work.
    But no one had been hurt and the DNR didn’t complain too long or too loudly when the size of the pond turned out to be three times the one originally proposed. It now extended from the edge of the deck on the back of the house all the way to the windbreak along the gravel road.
    The following summer, the grass on the earth dam sprouted thick and green. The dock and gazebo were completed on schedule, at a thousand dollars below the estimated cost. With warmer weather, Amy coaxed Kevin out of his room, away from his video games, computers, and magazines. The boy inched across the redwood deck in his slippers and placed his thin hands on the railing. He looked over the pond. A squadron of mallards flew overhead. Four of them broke formation and dropped out of the sky. At about twenty feet above the pond, wing and tail feathers fanned open, necks arched, green heads rose; the ducks appeared to be standing up in the air, sinking slowly. Then their wide orange feet skidded across the glazed surface, spraying water. Seconds later, they