Bera Noll opens the key register and the waiting list for family rooms at the South Welcome House above the lower market stairs. Before anyone moves a cart or changes a mark, the crew checks a row of numbered keys hanging beside the house’s shared water board. The grain fall air brings its own pace to the passage.
The latest page holds 26 families assigned a room before their temporary bed expires. Bera Noll reads the previous count (28) before the next mark is made. It is a small pause, long enough for the people at the rail to hear what the number leaves out.
The current list favors earlier arrival; advocates say it can split a household whose members reached the gate on different caravans. The current record does not settle that disagreement. The difference between those accounts is visible here: a rule on the board and a working condition just beyond it.
A second set of hands has checked the count and recorded where the methods differ. The entry belongs to the open-book review file at the South Welcome House above the lower market stairs. The next check will be made by another crew, asked to repeat the measure without borrowing the first crew’s conclusion.
When the shift closes, the file remains beside the marked place. The housing table will publish the wait by household size, not only by place in line. Until then, the route, schedule or allotment stays as it was at the opening bell.
