The Ploughboy 



its many fine hickory trees and the long gentle 

 slope leading up to it. Compared with Fountain 

 Lake farm it lay high and dry. The land was 

 better, but it had no living water, no spring or 

 stream or meadow or lake. A well ninety feet 

 deep had to be dug, all except the first ten feet 

 or so in fine-grained sandstone. When the sand- 

 stone was struck, my father, on the advice of a 

 man who had worked in mines, tried to blast 

 the rock; but from lack of skill the blasting 

 went on very slowly, and father decided to have 

 me do all the work with mason's chisels, a long, 

 hard job,with a good deal of danger in it. I had 

 to sit cramped in a space about three feet in 

 diameter, and wearily chip, chip, with heavy 

 hammer and chisels from early morning until 

 dark, day after day, for weeks and months. 

 In the morning, father and David lowered me 

 in a wooden bucket by a windlass, hauled up 

 what chips were left from the night before, then 

 went away to the farm work and left me until 

 noon, when they hoisted me out for dinner. 

 After dinner I was promptly lowered again, the 

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