The river had been the town's livelihood for as long as anyone could remember, turning the mill wheels and carrying timber to the markets downstream. But after the new dam was finished, the current slowed to a glassy stillness, and the mill wheels hung motionless above water that no longer pushed them. The old millers spoke of the change as though a friend had grown quiet and distant, while the younger residents, who had never known the river's roar, saw only a calm and convenient pond. To the elders, the silence was a kind of loss; to the young, it was simply the way the river had always been.