The Magic Egg, and Other StoriesStockton, Frank R.
Science
The Magic Egg, and Other Stories
Stockton, Frank R.
Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
We crossed the ridge of the hill into the low ground on the other side.
Here were no buildings, nothing which would interfere with the purity
of a well. My well-digger walked slowly over the ground with his
divining-rod. Very soon he exclaimed: "Here is water!" And picking
up a stick, he sharpened one end of it and drove it into the ground.
Then he took a string from his pocket, and making a loop in one end, he
put it over the stick.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I am going to make a circle four feet in diameter," he said. "We have
to dig the well as wide as that, you know."
"But I do not want a well here," said I. "It's too close to the wall.
I could not build a house over it. It would not do at all."
He stood up and looked at me. "Well, sir," said he, "will you tell me
where you would like to have a well?"
"Yes," said I. "I would like to have it over there in the corner of the
hedge. It would be near enough to the house; it would have a warm
exposure, which will be desirable in winter; and the little house which
I intend to build over it would look better there than anywhere else."
He took his divining-rod and went to the spot I had indicated. "Is
this the place?" he asked wishing to be sure he had understood me.
"Yes," I replied.
He put his twig in position, and in a few seconds it turned in the
direction of the ground. Then he drove down a stick, marked out a
circle, and the next day he came with two men and a derrick, and began
to dig my well.
When they had gone down twenty-five feet they found water, and when
they had progressed a few feet deeper they began to be afraid of
drowning. I thought they ought to go deeper, but the well-digger said
that they could not dig without first taking out the water, and that
the water came in as fast as they bailed it out, and he asked me to put
it to myself and tell him how they could dig it deeper. I put the
question to myself, but could find no answer. I also laid the matter
before some specialists, and it was generally agreed that if water came
in as fast as it was taken out, nothing more could be desired. The
well was, therefore, pronounced deep enough. It was lined with great
tiles, nearly a yard in diameter, and my well-digger, after
congratulating me on finding water so easily, bade me good-by and
departed with his men and his derrick.
On the other side of the wall which bounded my grounds, and near which
my well had been dug, there ran a country lane, leading nowhere in
particular, which seemed to be there for the purpose of allowing people
to pass my house, who might otherwise be obliged to stop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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