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.
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