For several mornings the results encouraged him. Soil beneath the flatter stones stayed noticeably cooler to his hand, and one surviving bean plant seemed less weary when the rest of the row had begun to curl. Eli told Nana Vera, who listened and asked what the exposed spaces between the stones were doing. He admitted he had not checked those as carefully, and she nodded toward the field as though sending him back to a question rather than an answer.
The next afternoon the gaps looked as bad as anything beyond the strip. Sunlight had struck the open patches all day, and a narrow crack had formed beside one plant's root crown. Eli watched a little cloud of dust lift from the space between two rocks as the wind passed over it. He realized he had solved one part of the problem while leaving another part exactly as it had been before.
When he dug lightly into one exposed gap, the earth broke apart in hard plates. The moisture beneath the adjacent flat stone had stayed somewhat protected, but the roots did not end neatly at the stone's edge. They spread toward the hot, open places too, and those sections still dried rapidly. Eli sat back on his heels, studying a pattern that looked different each time he moved his head.
He rearranged several stones to cover more of the exposed soil, then returned the following evening to find the same small cracks in different positions. A few pieces warmed intensely in the afternoon sun, and soil beside their edges felt hotter than he had expected. He began to suspect that the stones themselves could be helpful or harmful depending on their thickness, color, arrangement, and the time of day. This was more complicated than the simple idea of hiding dirt from the sun.
That weekend he made another visit to the creek bed. He chose flat, pale stones instead of the dark rounded ones he had carried before, reasoning that lighter surfaces might reflect more sunlight. He was not certain the difference would matter, and his notebook contained several question marks beside the observation. For the first time, he was growing comfortable with leaving a question unanswered until he could test it.
He also noticed a problem his earlier enthusiasm had hidden. Carrying stones took time, and time on a small farm was a resource nearly as scarce as water. His regular chores still needed doing, Ruth needed help with the garden, and Thomas needed another pair of hands when an irrigation hose split in the middle of a hot afternoon. If Eli tried to do everything at once, the experiment would become a burden his parents could not afford.
He devised a schedule, though he did not use such a grand word for it. He did his morning chores before collecting any stones, worked on the family fields when Thomas needed him, and reserved the cooler hours near sundown for the experimental strip. He carried smaller loads to save his back and stopped trying to make the entire project look impressive from the road. A notebook page filled with a modest gain seemed more useful than a tall pile of rock that made neighbors stare.