It was a daily pleasure to me to see the bucket lowered into the well. I took a friendly interest in that bucket, almost as if it had been a thing alive, and used to wonder whether it did not dread the rapid steady going down into darkness, and the sudden dip into the chill water at the bottom. I was quite glad when the rusty chain began to be wound up again, and the brimming bucket loomed slowly into sight. On a stone in the wall above the well there were some words engraved in queer old-fashioned characters. When first I knew how to read, I used to try to spell them out letter by letter, but I could not manage it. 'Why can't I read that,' I asked my mother rather indignantly, 'when I can read so well?' 'The books we read now-a-days are not printed with those sort of letters,' she said, pausing for a moment in turning the creaking old windlass. I looked down to see how my friend the bucket was getting on, and seeing him rising up safely towards me, turned back to the inscription. 'How stupid to put it so that we cannot read it,' I said. 'But wise people--people who know a great deal--read it quite easily,' said my mother. She had landed the bucket safely on the well-side, and she stood thoughtfully, and pulled a little moss off one of the old carved letters. 'It is not that they were stupid, Willie, but that we are not wise enough to understand. Very often when we think that things are not right or wise, it is only because we cannot make them out for ourselves; but if we saw clearer and knew more, we should find out that they were only too wise for us and too good.' She was talking to herself, I think, not to me, and I only answered the last words. 'Good; then are those old words very good?' 'Very good indeed, Willie.' 'What are they?' She read slowly-- 'For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in My Name; Verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward.' 'Why, that is in the Bible,' I said wonderingly. My mother smiled. 'I told you they were good words.' 'But how did they get there?' 'I don't know. I think some good man must have carved them long, long ago, that the water we draw up out of the well might remind us of Christ's words, and that we might remember to try and help one another.' And then she told me how all service done for our Master's sake--even the very smallest--should be remembered by Him, and should in no wise lose its reward. I have forgotten the words she used, but I remember that I said, 'I should like to give some one a cup of water, mother.' She was going back to the house, with the pitcher she had filled, but she stopped to put her hand upon my head, and answered-- 'I hope you will often. Do not forget, Willie.' I never did. That little talk, with its few and simple words, was to bring a great change over my life.