"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.

Along this lane my neighbors would pass, and often strangers drove by,
and as my well could easily be seen over the low stone wall, its
construction had excited a great deal of interest. Some of the people
who drove by were summer folks from the city, and I am sure, from
remarks I overheard, that it was