第55章 MY WELL AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT(6)

That would be probably as long as you would care to have water forced into the house.""Yes"' said I, "I think that is likely."

He saw that his scheme did not strike me favorably. Suddenly a light flashed across his face.

"I tell you what you can do with your pipe," he said, "just as it is. You can set up a clock over it which would run for forty years without winding."I smiled, and he turned sadly away to his horse; but he had not ridden ten yards before he came back and called to me over the wall.

"If the earth at the bottom of your pipe should ever yield to pressure and give way, and if water or gas, or--anything, should be squirted out of it, I beg you will let me know as soon as possible."I promised to do so.

When the pounding was at an end my wife and child came home.

But the season continued dry, and even their presence could not counteract the feeling of aridity which seemed to permeate everything which belonged to us, material or immaterial. We had a great deal of commiseration from our neighbors. I think even Mrs. Betty Perch began to pity us a little, for her spring had begun to trickle again in a small way, and she sent word to me that if we were really in need of water she would be willing to divide with us. Phineas Colwell was sorry for us, of course, but he could not help feeling and saying that if I had consulted him the misfortune would have been prevented.

It was late in the summer when my wife returned, and when she made her first visit of inspection to the grounds and gardens, her eyes, of course, fell upon the unfinished well. She was shocked.

"I never saw such a scene of wreckage," she said. "It looks like a Western town after a cyclone. I think the best thing you can do is to have this dreadful litter cleared up, the ground smoothed and raked, the wall mended, and the roof put back on that little house, and then if we can make anybody believe it is an ice-house, so much the better."This was good advice, and I sent for a man to put the vicinity of the well in order and give it the air of neatness which characterizes the rest of our home.

The man who came was named Mr. Barnet. He was a contemplative fellow with a pipe in his mouth. After having worked at the place for half a day he sent for me and said:

"I'll tell you what I would do if I was in your place. I'd put that pump-house in order, and I'd set up the engine, and put the pump down into that thirty-foot well you first dug, and I'd pump water into my house."I looked at him in amazement.

"There's lots of water in that well," he continued, "and if there's that much now in this drought, you will surely have ever so much more when the weather isn't so dry. I have measured the water, and I know."I could not understand him. It seemed to me that he was talking wildly. He filled his pipe and lighted it and sat upon the wall.