The Carnival Begins to Rise

For three long days the convoy never stopped.

While one group of men carefully dismantled another ride at the old carnival grounds, another crew unloaded trailers beside the Planetary Roundtable.

The diesel engines came and went.

Horse-drawn wagons carried tools and timbers wherever they were needed.

Every load had been planned before it left.

Every piece arrived exactly where Mike wanted it.

No one hurried.

No one wasted motion.

The Good Earth had taught them that careful work was always the fastest work.

By the morning of the fourth day, the abandoned carnival no longer existed.

It had become hundreds of carefully stacked pieces spread across Artesian Hill.

Mike stood with Buck overlooking the growing collection.

The Ferris wheel sections rested on heavy oak blocking.

The carousel horses waited beneath canvas covers.

The Tilt-A-Whirl tubs sat in neat rows.

The bumper cars were parked side by side as though patiently waiting for children to discover them again.

Mike smiled.

"We've finished taking it apart."

Buck looked across the hill.

"Now comes the fun part."

Mike laughed.

"No..."

"Now comes the careful part."

The first concrete footings had already been marked.

Carpenters set forms.

Masons mixed mortar.

Survey stakes outlined the midway.

Children watched from behind a rope line while Rosie wandered from crew to crew inspecting everyone's progress.

Samuel walked up carrying two cabbages.

Rosie hurried to meet him.

Samuel handed one to Jumbo and one to Daisy before scratching Rosie gently behind her ears.

Rebecca joined him.

"It doesn't even look like a construction site."

Samuel looked across the hill where every trade seemed to be working in harmony.

"No."

"It looks like a community."

Rebecca watched the men raising the first center column of the carousel.

"What do you suppose all this becomes?"

Samuel smiled.

"I believe..."

"...it becomes another reason for people to gather."

Rebecca slipped her hand into his.

"And another reason to work."

Samuel nodded.

"That's the nature of the Good Earth."

He looked across the valley where barns, gardens, workshops, and now a carnival all grew from the labor of willing hands.

"The Good Earth responds to work..."

"...with good..."

"...and plenty."

For a moment no one spoke.

Only the sounds of hammers, saws, children's laughter, and Rosie trying unsuccessfully to persuade Jacob that one more cabbage would surely be appropriate drifted across Artesian Hill.

The Planetary Roundtable was no longer simply becoming a marketplace.

It was becoming a destination.

A place where families would come.

Where strangers would become neighbors.

Where visitors from distant worlds might discover that the richest civilization on Earth was measured not by what it possessed...

...but by what it chose to build together.