Harlan gave him a look.
Cass left.
Della crouched beside the first leaking joint.
Her face was red.
Not from heat.
“I tightened it.”
“I know.”
“It should hold.”
“Apparently not.”
She looked at her father.
“What did I do wrong?”
Harlan shrugged.
“Find out.”
That answer made her furious.
For ten minutes.
Then useful.
She removed the coupling.
Old gasket.
Flattened.
Tiny crack along the edge.
Second leak.
Different cause.
Pipe end slightly oval from years of being dragged behind equipment.
Third.
Improvised adapter not seated square.
Three leaks.
Three different reasons.
Della fixed each.
Replaced gasket.
Trimmed pipe.
Added proper support.
Used thread tape only where appropriate after initially trying to wrap everything with it.
Harlan corrected that one.
“You can’t solve every leak with more tape.”
“Why not?”
“Because eventually you’ve made a bandage instead of a joint.”
Second test.
The following Saturday.
Water traveled all the way to the field.
Della ran outside beside the pipe, smiling.
The first drip line began emitting.
Then the second.
Then the third barely produced anything.
The rows farther away stayed dry.
She waited.
Nothing changed.
Harlan crouched near the header.
“Pressure?”
Della attached the inexpensive gauge Clifton had loaned her.
Too low.
She checked at the tank.
Higher.
At the field.
Lower.
She sat down in the dirt.
Harlan stayed beside her.
“It loses too much.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Pipe.”
“Which part?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what you find out next.”
Della did not cry.
She wanted to.
Instead, she spent the afternoon measuring.
She discovered her longest main-line section was too narrow.
The pipe she had chosen because it was easiest to connect created more friction loss than she had estimated.
She had designed the entire system around static head.
Opal had warned her.
Water always charges a toll.
That night, Della reopened the pamphlets.
Pipe diameter.
Flow.
Friction charts.
She understood almost none of the equations at first.
Opal sat across from her.
“You’re making that face.”
“What face?”
“The one your grandfather made when numbers insulted him.”
Della pushed the paper over.
“What does this mean?”
Opal studied it.
“Hazen-Williams.”
“What?”
“Pipe friction equation.”
“You know it?”
“I know enough to hate it.”
Della laughed.
They worked together.
Not perfectly.
They did not need laboratory precision.
They needed to understand the direction.
Larger pipe reduced friction dramatically.
Fewer unnecessary elbows helped.
Shorter runs helped.
Della needed more large-diameter pipe.
That was when she returned to Wendell Coe.
He found her inside his old equipment barn holding one of his four-inch aluminum laterals.
“That one’s heavy.”
“I know.”
“You can’t tow four of those behind a bicycle.”
“I know.”