Dye-Divers of the Given-Over Vat-Rope — an age of a river-mouth indigo works whose deepest dye-vats are sunk in stone wells so tall a Dye-Diver must be lowered on a single waxed cotton vat-rope to turn the cloth at the bottom where the pigment lies richest, her whole apprenticeship spent learning to HOLD the rope dead-still against the warm fermenting up-draft that boils off the vat's surface; but the works' true rite is the one appointed opening of the hand at the deepest turn, when the master lets the vat-rope run and the rising vapor-column catches her dye-heavy indigo robes and lifts her back toward the ring of daylight at the well's mouth — and this Diver is caught in the first three heartbeats of the going-up, still gripping the last unturned length of cloth, indigo streaming off her hem in the rising air, discovering that the draft she braced against all season was carrying her back into the light