"I lay awake for hours last night, thinking
what would happen if you struck hot water. In the first place,
it would be absolutely pure, because, even if it were
possible for germs and bacilli to get down so deep, they would be
boiled before you got them, and then you could cool that water
for drinking. When fresh it would be already heated for cooking
and hot baths. And then--just think of it!--you could introduce
the hot-water system of heating into your house, and there would
be the hot water always ready. But the great thing would be your
garden. Think of the refuse hot water circulating in pipes up
and down and under all your beds! That garden would bloom in the
winter as others do in the summer; at least, you could begin to
have Lima-beans and tomatoes as soon as the frost was out of the
air."
I laughed. "It would take a lot of pumping," I said, "to do
all that with the hot water."
"Oh, I forgot to say," he cried, with sparkling eyes, "that I
do not believe you would ever have any more pumping to do. You
have now gone down so far that I am sure whatever you find will
force itself up. It will spout high into the air or through all
your pipes, and run always."
Phineas Colwell was by when this was said, and he must have
gone down to Mrs. Betty Perch's house to talk it over with her,
for in the afternoon she came to see me.
"I understand," said she, "that you are trying to get hot
water out of your well, and that there is likely to be a lot more
than you need, so that it will run down by the side of the road.
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