It had continued carrying water through timber cut from a species that had vanished from the surrounding forests.
And Glenn had damaged it further with a modern plumbing tool.
He felt frustrated with himself.
He had tried to solve the problem quickly.
Instead, he had created more work.
That evening, he called Winkler and explained what had happened.
The older man listened quietly.
Then he asked a question.
"Did you read the part about the access plugs?"
Glenn frowned.
"The access plugs?"
"In the survey. Read that section again."
Glenn retrieved his notes.
He found the line describing the maintenance fittings.
"Access plugs at surface, spaced at joint intervals for clearing."
He read the words aloud.
Then he fell silent.
Winkler explained that the original builders had anticipated mineral accumulation. They knew the wooden conduit would eventually require cleaning, so they had installed iron access caps at intervals along its route.
Each cap allowed a short section of the bore to be cleared independently.
There was no need to force a long rod through multiple joints.
No need to push against corroded fittings.
No need to risk splitting the timber by driving a flexible tool through a hundred feet of pipe.
The original system had been designed to solve the exact problem Glenn was facing.
He simply had not understood it.
The next morning, Glenn carried a steel probe into the upper pasture.
Starting at the springhouse, he measured along the route of the buried conduit and pushed the probe into the soil at intervals corresponding to the lengths of the logs.
At approximately nine feet, the probe struck something hard.
Glenn knelt and began removing the grass and topsoil.
An iron cap appeared.
It was old, dark, and almost completely concealed beneath the earth.
But it was there.
Exactly where the survey suggested it should be.
Glenn continued.
At approximately eighteen feet, he found another.
At twenty-seven feet, another.
The pattern continued down the hillside.
He uncovered eleven access points in the upper section before the lane, two more near the lane itself, and additional fittings through the lower field toward the barn.
They had been there the entire time.
Hidden beneath 116 years of soil, grass, and accumulated thatch.
The caps were arranged in the same order Ezra Trivet and his sons had installed them in 1887.
Glenn stood in the pasture and looked along the route.
He imagined the original builders laying each log into the trench.
Every section had been bored.
Every iron sleeve fitted.
Every joint aligned.