Along this lane my neighbors would pass, and often strangers
drove by, and as my well could easily be seen over the low stone
wall, its construction had excited a great deal of interest.
Some of the people who drove by were summer folks from the city,
and I am sure, from remarks I overheard, that it was thought a
very queer thing to dig for water. Of course they must have
known that people used to do this in the olden times, even as far
back as the time of Jacob and Rebecca, but the expressions of
some of their faces indicated that they remembered that this was
the nineteenth century.
My neighbors, however, were all rural people, and much more
intelligent in regard to water-supplies. One of them, Phineas
Colwell by name, took a more lively interest in my
operations than did any one else. He was a man of about fifty
years of age, who had been a soldier. This fact was kept alive
in the minds of his associates by his dress, a part of which was
always military. If he did not wear an old fatigue-jacket with
brass buttons, he wore his blue trousers, or, perhaps, a
waistcoat that belonged to his uniform, and if he wore none of
these, his military hat would appear upon his head. I think he
must also have been a sailor, judging from the little gold rings
in his ears. But when I first knew him he was a carpenter, who
did mason-work whenever any of the neighbors had any jobs of the
sort. He also worked in gardens by the day, and had told me that
he understood the care of horses and was a very good driver.
Pages:
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197