The Desert and the Sown | Page 9

but the well
remained open and kept up its illicit connection with the drain.
Old Becky, keeper of the widower's keys, had followed closely the
history of those unhappy "cases;" she had listened to discussions,
violent or suppressed, she had heard much talk that went on behind her
master's back.
Employers of that day and generation were masters; and masters are

meant to be outwitted. Emily, the youngest and last of the flock, was
now a child of four, dark like her mother, sturdy and strong like her
father. On an August day soon after the mother's funeral, Becky took
her little charge to the well and showed her a tumbler filled, with water
not freshly drawn.
"See them little specks and squirmy things?" Emmy saw them. She
followed their wavering motion in the glass as the stern forefinger
pointed. "Those are little baby snakes," said Becky mysteriously. "The
well is full of 'em. Sometimes you can see 'em, sometimes you can't,
but they're always there. They never grow big down the well; it's too
dark 'n' cold. But you drink that water and the snakes will grow and
wriggle and work all through ye, and eat your insides out, and you'll die.
Your mother"--in a whisper--"she drunk that water, and she died. Your
sister Ruth, and Dirck, and Jimmy, they drunk it, and they died. Now if
Emmy wants to die"--Large eyes of horror fastened on the speaker's
face. "No--o, she don't want to die, the Loveums! She don't want Becky
to have no little girl left at all! No; we mustn't ever drink any of that
bad water--all full of snakes, ugh! But if Emmy's thirsty, see here!
Here's good nice water. It's going to be always here in this pail--same
water the little lambs drink up in the fields. Becky 'll take Emmy up on
the hill sometime and show where the little lambs drink."
Grief had not clouded the farmer's oversight in petty things. He noticed
the innocent pail on the area bench, never empty, always specklessly
clean.
"What is this water?" he asked.
Becky was surly. "Drinking water. Want some?"
"What's it doing here all the time?"
"I set it there for Emmy. She can't reach up to the bucket."
Abraham tasted the water suspiciously. The well-water was hard, with
a tang of iron. The spring soft, and less cold for its journey to the barn.
"Where did you get this water?"
"Help yourself. There's plenty more."
"Becky, where did this water come from? Out o' the well?"
Becky gave a snort of exasperation. "Sam Lewis brought it from the
barn! I'm too lame to be histin' buckets. I've got the rheumatiz' awful in
my back and shoulders, if ye want to know!"
"Becky, you're lying to me. You've been listening to what don't concern

you. Now, see here. You are not going to ask the men to carry water for
you. They've got something else to do. _There's_ your water, as handy
as ever a woman had it; use that or go without."
Abraham caught up the pail and flung its contents out upon the grass,
scattering the hens that came sidling back with squawks of inquiring
temerity.
When next Emmy came for water, the old woman took her by the hand
in silence and led her into the dim meat-cellar, a half-basement with
one low window level with the grass. There was the pail, safe hidden
behind the soft-soap barrel.
"I had to hide it from your pa," Becky whispered. "Don't you never let
him know you're afraid o' the well-water. He drunk it when he was a
little boy. He don't believe in the snakes. But _there wa'n't none then_.
It's when water gets old and rotten. You can believe what Becky says.
She knows! But you mustn't ever tell. Your father 'd be as mad as fire if
he knowed I said anything about snakes. He'd send me right away, and
some strange woman would come, and maybe she'd whip Emmy.
Emmy want Becky to go?" Sobs, and little arms clinging wildly to
Becky's aproned skirts. "No, no! Well, she ain't goin'. But Emmy
mustn't tell tales or she might have to. Tattlers are wicked anyway.
'Telltale tit! Your tongue shall be slit, and all the little dogs'--There! run
now! There's your poppy. Don't you never,--never!"
Emmy let her eyes be wiped, and with one long, solemn, secret look of
awed intelligence she ran out to meet her father. She did not love him,
and the smile with which she met him was no new lesson in diplomacy.
But her first secret from him lay deep in the beautiful eyes, her mother's
eyes, as she raised them to his.
"Ain't that wonderful!" said Becky, with a satisfied sigh, watching her.
"Safe as a