en I found
it was your well I thought I ought to come over to speak about it. I
do not object to the shaking of my barn, because my man tells me the
continual jolting is thrashing out the oats and wheat, but I do not
like to have all my apples and pears shaken off my trees. And then,"
said he, "I have a late brood of chickens, and they cannot walk,
because every time they try to make a step they are jolted into the air
about a foot. And again, we have had to give up having soup. We like
soup, but we do not care to have it spout up like a fountain whenever
that hammer comes down."

I was grieved to trouble this friend, and I asked him what I should do.
"Do you want me to stop the work on the well?" said I.

"Oh, no," said he, heartily. "Go on with the work. You must have
water, and we will try to stand the bumping. I dare say it is good for
dyspepsia, and the cows are getting used to having the grass jammed up
against their noses. Go ahead; we can stand it in the daytime, but if
you could stop the night-work we would be very glad. Some people may
think it a well-spring of pleasure to be bounced out of bed, but I
don't."

Mrs. Perch came to me with a face like a squeezed lemon, and asked me
if I could lend her five nails.

"What sort?" said I.

"The kind you nail clapboards on with," said she. "There is one of
them been shook entirely off my house by your well. I am in hopes that
before the rest are all shook off I shall get in some money that is
owing me and can afford to buy nails for myself."

I stopped the night-work, but this was all I could do for these
neighbors.

My optimist friend was delighted when he heard of my driven well. He
lived so far away that he and his mother were not disturbed by the
jarring of the ground. Now he was sure that some of the internal
secrets of the earth would be laid bare, and he rode or drove over
every day to see what we were getting out of the well. I know that he
was afraid we would soon get water, but was too kind-hearted to say so.

One day the pipe refused to go deeper. No matter how hard it was
struck, it bounced up again. When some of the substance it had struck
was brought up it looked like French chalk, and my optimist eagerly
examined it.

"A French-chalk mine," said he, "would not be a bad thing, but I hoped
that you had struck a bed of mineral gutta-percha. That would be a
grand find."

But the chalk-bed was at last passed, and we began again