"What sort? " said I.
"The kind you nail clapboards on with," said she. "There is
one of them been shook entirely off my house by your well. I am
in hopes that before the rest are all shook off I shall get in
some money that is owing me and can afford to buy nails for
myself."
I stopped the night-work, but this was all I could do for
these neighbors.
My optimist friend was delighted when he heard of my driven
well. He lived so far away that he and his mother were not
disturbed by the jarring of the ground. Now he was sure that
some of the internal secrets of the earth would be laid bare, and
he rode or drove over every day to see what we were getting out
of the well. I know that he was afraid we would soon get water,
but was too kind-hearted to say so.
One day the pipe refused to go deeper. No matter how hard it
was struck, it bounced up again. When some of the substance it
had struck was brought up it looked like French chalk, and my
optimist eagerly examined it.
"A French-chalk mine," said he, "would not be a bad thing,
but I hoped that you had struck a bed of mineral gutta-percha.
That would be a grand find."
But the chalk-bed was at last passed, and we began again to
bring up nothing but common earth.
"I suppose," said my optimist to me, one morning, "that you
must soon come to water, and if you do I hope it will be hot
water."
"Hot water!" I exclaimed. "I do not want that."
"Oh, yes, you would, if you had thought about it as much as I
have," he replied.
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