“The brimming bucket at my mouth –
Coolness of water!
In all my veins the heat, the drouth, –
O, the well water!
I
Water Barrels
Within the lumber wagon by the well
The barrels stand, and little snowflakes drive
Across them while the pulley groans and creaks
As on the stubborn frozen rope, the wrists
Of the hauler lean till the bucket clears the curb.
He seizes the bail, and drags, and strains tiptoe
To reach above the barrel. Driblets wet
His garments through and stiffen into ice.
Seventy buckets and done! Cover the barrels.
Three miles of windy road! The nervous bays
Surge heavily on the bits, while numb hands ache
Holding them in lest jolting waste the water.
The driver walks. Meanwhile the pulley laboring
Over the fifty feet from bucket to bucket
Groans on in the snow to serve another hauler.
The upland wells will be deep, they are long a-digging;
So wagons rattle down with the empty water barrels,
And wagons creep heavily home with the barrels sloshing.
Yes, I did hear. If,- if there came a fire?
Be still! To that no one but God can answer.
II
The Windmill
Yes, July heat. You’ll drink another dipper.
The old wheel creaks and strains. Give her good breezes,
She spins around as pretty as a picture.
And it blows every day as if to keep
Our hundred barrel tank full to the brim.
Two hundred feet, and half the depth hard rock, sir.
Yes, dug. A sizable hole; you see that dirt pile.
A dollar for each foot down, and board and lodging;
He took his five months’ wages, bought an eighty.
O yes, we lived here while the well was digging;
Each day for stock and house we hauled three barrels.
It grew a little stale, sucked up a wood taste;
Now this comes clear and cold from porous sandstone,
And on a hot day – there, the tank runs over.
III
The Well Digger
“”Spring up, O well;
Sing ye unto it:
The prindes digged the well,
The nobles of the people digged it,
By the direction of the lawgivers
With their staves.””
Numbers XXI, 17, 18.
Jim surely did not look much like a prince;
As – owning no horse – he toiled with a sack of flour
Six miles across the prairie to his soddy.
He stopped at our place, wiped the sweat away;
His Adam’s apple shuttling as he held
The dipper long to his mouth while he sat stooped
In a big chair in the shadow of the house.
A tall, thin, wiry man with rusty beard,
Plat nose, and scrawny brows over hollow eyes
Glinting with fire.
“”Sonny, I dug this well.””
“”It’s a good well, Jim.””
”You bet she is, damn good!
My wells dug end on end would make a mile.””
“”Did you like digging?””
“”No, I won’t say like.
Paid me when pay was scarce. Too much stonegrit ;
Bad for the lungs. They lower pretty slow
So that the rope won’t spin you on the walls.
You look up, see a silver dime of the sky
Crossed by the windlass. You don’t know the sky
Till you see her from a well hole. And your voice
Answers the tender with a boomin’ sound
As if from seventy barrels. If he kicks
Some grains of gravel, stings you worse’n hail
At a hundred feet.”
“”Anything ever fall?””
“”Yes, yes. I was a diggin’ Blakesley’s well.
I hunch myself up closer than the most,
And make a hole that’s only three foot ten
‘Stead of four feet. It saves a heap o’ dirt.
Down ninety foot, his brother tendin’ me.
We used a nail keg with a bail of wire;
I filled it with small stone, he drawed it up
Most of the way. I heard a kind of swish,
Looked, saw her comin’. Yes, the wire had broke –
Got bent wrong, snapped. Kebunk, kebunk, kebunk,
She hit first one then tother side. I stood
Flat to the wall in no time, and kewhiz,
The nail keg took my shirt a glancing blow.
Buttons and cloth and hide went. Good I’m thin.
I fell on the bucket in a shower of stones.
No, didn’t feel ’em, didn’t know a thing.
My breast was black for three weeks. ‘N’ I said then,
‘I work hereafter where I’ve room to dodge;
I don’t want all hell a-fallin’ on my head
Without a hole to run to.’ Then they got
A drill machine ’bout seven miles below.
It drills ’em. ‘N’ I quit. My wife was after me
To quit before.””
“”Jim, tell me what you thought
When you saw her comin’.””
”Think? There wasn ‘t time.
I thought, if she hits she makes a pancake of me.
Thin, to the wall!””
“”Was that the only time?””
”I must be movin’! Another dipper, sonny.”
“”But weren’t you often afraid the rope might break?””
”No, hardly ever. Your mind is on your work.
Once a week, maybe, it would come to me,
If she caves,- good-bye. Yes, once she caved.
“”My gosh!
I got to travel. Thank you, that’s good water –
Some other time, boy. Home by noon. Good-bye.”
(Edwin Ford Piper)”
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