They were doing a new thing with the cod livers, to get the oil out. William knew men who built the new boilers. Steam rushed into cone shaped vats where the livers churned and rendered their oil in half an hour. It was done over open fires. Smoke and steam and that oily stench billowed over the gardens.

The cod oil boilers were part of the new machinery that smoked and glittered all over the city. They were modern. But below them were old things. Shells and stones lay in the water from hundreds of years back. William had picked up shells. The nicest one was the size of his hand. It had five spirals, then it whirled around like a petal on a big white rose.

The shells and stones were on the shore. Then there were the oil factories. Then rose the South Side Hill. On top lay old things and ancient places. That hill had time prisoned in its stones. You could smell old battles between the French and the English, if you knew where to walk.

William liked to wander over that hill and the stony woods behind it. He'd look down into Freshwater Bay on the other side. He would snare rabbits, and think of the time when this was the real New World.

Settlers from old England and men from New France had hidden in these hills. With swords and muskets, they kept warm near secret fires. William had heard stories of medicine bottles and French coins found near the tall stones.

When he walked there he got away from new things. The smell of ice water under the stones was the same as it was two hundred years before. Then, this land was a dream in the minds of the French and the English. It was a dream of a new life. They had spilled blood over the stones rather than share that new life.