About this story
The mill is lost, Tom grinds down his father's debts, and one summer Stephen Guest's boat goes past the landing because he does not turn it and you do not speak. Forty-two chapters carry the empty hutch to a midnight flood, a boat that goes down in one embrace, and a stone that reads In their death they were not divided.
How it opens
The Floss pressed brown water past Dorlcote Mill while the great wheel shook the floor.
Mrs TulliverMaggie, come from the river before your hair becomes impossible again.
Flour dust softened the beams, the sacks, and Luke Moggs crossing the yard below.
Mr TulliverLet the child look at water; it teaches movement better than a sampler does.
Choose
Tom never has to sit still for curls.
I would rather learn how the mill wheel works.