LUCY went out through the room by which she had entered, and came to the door, where she had knocked when she came to the house. The door was open, and she walked out. She stood a few minutes upon the great, flat stone, which served for a step, considering which way she should go.
Just then, she recollected that she was thirsty; and so she went back and asked Mary Jay how she should get a drink.
Mary Jay told her to go and look under her shelf in her closet. Lucy went, and she found a little tin mug hanging there upon a nail; for Mary Jay, like all good teachers, had taken pains to consider beforehand what would be necessary for her little pupil, and had provided for every thing, so as to prevent delay and trouble afterwards. This is always the best way in teaching, as well as in every thing else.
“Now,” said Mary Jay, “take that mug, and go out in the yard, and around behind the house, and you will see a small gate. Go through that gate, and you will see a little building with woodbine growing all over it. There you can get a drink.”
“How?” said Lucy.
“O, you’ll see when you get there,” said Mary Jay.
So Lucy took her mug and walked along. She found the gate very easily. It was small and easy to open. When Lucy had passed through, it shut of its own accord.
She found herself in a pretty, green yard, next to the backside of the house; and in the corner of this yard was the little building which Mary Jay had referred to. It was small; it had a roof and sides, but the front was open. It was almost covered and enveloped with woodbine. There was no floor, but there came up out of the ground, inside of the building, a small red post, with a little stream of water spouting out from it. Lucy went immediately to it, to see what it was.
There was a large, square board upon the ground before the post, which looked like the cover of a box, buried in the ground. The water from the post fell into a place just behind this box. She took hold of the edge of the board, to see if it would lift up like a cover. She wanted to see where the water went to.
She found that the board would lift up like the cover of a box; and under it there was a small, square cistern, full of water. Lucy put the cover down again immediately, partly because she was afraid that she might fall in, and partly because she happened to recollect that it was not right for her to open the cistern without leave.
Then Lucy held her mug under the stream of water which spouted out from the post, until the mug was full. Then she had a good drink. She afterwards held her mug under, and let it fill several times, pouring the water down upon the grass. When the water first struck upon the bottom of the mug, it made a sort of a drumming sound, which was gradually deadened as the bottom became covered with water. Then Lucy would watch the surface of the water as it rose slowly, until at length it would run over in streams, and fall into the cistern below.
While Lucy was sitting here, a door which led into the back part of the house, opened, and a girl came out, swinging a pail back and forth in her hand. The girl advanced towards the place where Lucy was, by a path which was well trodden. When she reached the cistern, she lifted up the cover; and then, dipping the pail in, she took up a pail full of water, and then shut the cover down.
“Well, Lucy,” said she, “how do you like the aqueduct?”
“Is this an aqueduct?” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said she; “here is where we get all our water.”
“Why don’t you hold your pail under, and catch the spouting?” said Lucy.
“Because,” said the girl, “I can’t wait long enough for it. So we have a cistern, which keeps always full, and we can dip it out of that.”
So saying, the girl went away towards the house, carrying the pail upon one side, and leaning her head and arm away over to the other. Lucy then thought that she would go and look around the yard, and see what else she could find.
She walked along towards the garden gate. “I knew,” she said to herself, “that Mary Jay would let me go in her garden, though Royal said she would not.”
She opened the gate, and walked in. She found many rows of corn, and beans, and other garden vegetables, but not many flowers. In the back corner were some large sunflowers, with great bumble-bees in them; and there were two or three apple-trees, with a great many apples growing on the branches. Some were red, and some were of a russet-brown.
Lucy liked the garden very much; but she began soon to think that it was time for her to go in. So she turned around, and began to walk back towards the garden gate. She was walking now in a path along on the opposite side of the garden from that in which she came in, and looking at some large gourds, which were growing by the side of it, when suddenly she heard a great buzzing near her. She looked up, and saw that there was a hive of bees under a little shed, by the side of the walk close before her.
Lucy was afraid to go by the bees, and so she turned back to go around some other way.
She found that she had to go quite to the backside of the garden, before she could get into another path, which would lead towards the gate. Here, just as she passed the end of a row of currant-bushes, her attention was attracted by a stile, or set of steps, made of boards, which was made to get over the fence by. Lucy thought that she would climb up upon the stile, and look over, and see what there was upon the other side.
She found that she could mount very easily; and, when she got up to the highest step but one, she could see over into the field beyond. It was a very pleasant place, and Lucy wished very much that she could go over. There was a path well beaten, which led down a gentle descent, until it turned around the point of a rocky precipice, and disappeared among the trees. Lucy wished very much that she knew where the path led to. She thought that she could see something down among the trees, glimmering like light, reflected from water.
But Lucy then thought that it was quite time for her to go in; and so she got down from the stile, and walked along towards the gate. By the route which she was now taking, she was led away from the bees, so that she reached the gate without any difficulty. Then she went in and took her place at her desk again.
That evening, when she went home, Royal asked her how she liked her school.
“Very much,” said Lucy; “only there are no other children for me to play with.”
“True,” said Royal; “but you don’t go to school to play, and so that is no hardship.”
“Yes, it is a hardship,” said Lucy, “for I have a recess, and I want somebody to play with me in the recess.”
“A recess!” said Royal—“a recess for only one scholar!”
“I had a recess,” said Lucy, “and an excellent recess too, and you don’t know what I saw.”
“What was it?” rejoined Royal.
“A post,” said Lucy, “with water spouting out of it.”
“It was a pump, I suppose,” replied Royal, “and the water spouted out when you pumped.”
“No,” said Lucy, “it was only a short post about so high.” Here Lucy held her hand out, about two feet above the level of the ground, to show Royal how high the post was.
“Why, Lucy,” said Royal, “water couldn’t spout out of a pump unless there was something to make it.”
“Yes it could,” said Lucy; “I saw it. It was nothing but a red post so high.”
Here Lucy held out her hand again, to indicate to Royal the height of the post.
“And what do you suppose made the water come out?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy; “only I know that there was nothing there but a post, for I saw it myself. The water came up out of a box in the ground.”
“How do you know?” said Royal.
“Why, I saw it,” replied Lucy. “I lifted up the cover of the box, and looked in, and it was full of water. I mean to ask my father to buy such a post, and put it in our yard.”
“O Lucy,” said Royal, with a laugh, “it couldn’t be—not unless there was a lead pipe, or something to come along under the ground, for the water to run in.”
“No,” said Lucy, “there wasn’t any lead pipe; it was nothing but a post. I saw it myself.”
“There must be a lead pipe,” said Royal, very positively, “under the ground, or else the water wouldn’t spout up.”
Lucy paused a moment, considering whether what Royal said could be true; but at length she added,—
“Why, Royal, there couldn’t be any lead pipe in the ground, because, if there was, they would have dug up the grass around there, when they put it down. But the ground was not dug up at all. It was smooth and grassed all over the yard.”
Lucy was wrong. She ought not to have been so positive. It is very unsafe for children to be positive, in saying what is and what is not possible. And Royal was wrong too. He might safely have said, that he presumed that there was a lead pipe under the ground; but he ought not to have been so positive of what he had no means of certainly knowing.
The question was not settled until Lucy went to school the next day. She then asked Mary Jay about it.
“There is a wooden pipe, under the ground,” said Mary Jay.
“A wooden pipe?” repeated Lucy.
“Yes,” said Mary Jay, “a pipe made of wooden logs, with holes bored through them, from end to end. Then these logs are put together under the ground, and thus they make a long wooden pipe, and the water comes through that.”
“Where does it come from?” said Lucy.
“It comes from a spring, on a hill behind the house. The spring is pretty high, and so the water runs down until it gets to the post, and then, as it cannot get any farther, it spouts out into the air.”
“I thought it came from the box of water underneath,” said Lucy.
“No,” said Mary Jay; “the water in the cistern comes out of the post; it does not go into it. The water spouts out from the post, and keeps the cistern full.”
“And where does the rest of the water go to?” said Lucy.
“It flows along through another pipe, underground, into a trough in the barn-yard, where the cows go to drink.”
Lucy paused a moment, reflecting upon what she had heard; and then she said,—
“But, Mary Jay, how could they put the great logs in the ground, without digging up all the grass in the yard?”
“They did dig it up,” said Mary Jay, “I suppose, when they put the logs down; but that was several years ago, and the grass has grown up since.”
“O,” said Lucy, “I didn’t think of that.”
Lucy paused again a few minutes, and then she drew a long breath, and said,—
“Well,—I knew the water didn’t come in a leaden pipe, at any rate, and I told Royal so.”