The Well

“What are we going to do today, Papa?”

The sun was shining bright and the day was clear. With a whisper of a breeze stirring, it just seemed like a day made for adventures.

At the kitchen table he finished off the last few drops of his coffee. “Today I’m going to see if I can clean a few rocks from the bottom of the well that’s at our old house. It’s a good well of water, so I want to take care of it. We’ve had such a dry summer the water level is down enough I can see what I’m doing.”

“How will you do that, Papa?”

“Yes, Papa. How will you do that?” Mama had stopped washing the breakfast dishes, put her hands on her hips, and listened to his plans.

“I’m thinking I can use a rope, tied to our logging tongs, to snag the rocks. Then I’ll tie the rope to the back of Ole Blue and pull the rocks right over the top of the well.”

“That sounds a tad dangerous. I don’t know that I want Gwyn anywhere close while you’re working at the well.”

“Oh, please! I HAVE to be there! Who will watch after Papa?”

“You do have a point. He does need to be watched.”

“Hey! I’m sittin’ right here! I hear what you’re saying about me.”

“Good!” Mama said.

“I don’t have to take this abuse!” Papa said with a twinkle in his eye. “Come on, Gwyn. We’ve got important work to do.”

With that he got up from the table, straightened his sweat-stained straw hat, and went out the kitchen door. I was, of course, hot on his heels. This would be something out of the ordinary and I surely didn’t want to miss anything.

“What’s first?”

“First, I have to find the logging tongs, which I think are hanging on the wall in the corn crib. Second, find that long rope that has been around here longer than you have. Then I’ll tie the tongs to the rope and we’ll see if we can catch a rock.”

Faster than Speck could take a nap, which is pretty fast, Papa had one end of the rope tied to those heavy steel tongs and the other end to the corner of the shiny bumper on the back of his truck. Then we peeped over the wall that circled the well.

The wall was made of rocks, like you find in fields or woods, and came up almost as high as my chin. They were smooth and cool to touch and Papa said the well was lots older than him and had been here as long as anyone could remember. I had to stand on my tippy toes in order to see down to where the water was.

“I don’t see any rocks. How do you know where they are?”

“It’s like fishing, I reckon. You just toss your line in the water and hope for the best. That’s what we’re doing.”

He picked up the tongs, tied the rope to its two handles, which reminded me of a pair of giant scissors with hooks on each end of the blades, and dropped them straight down into the well.

Kerchunk. The sound echoed off the smooth, rock wall of the well.

“Here we go, Gwyn. Ready or not, I’m pulling it up.”

I peered anxiously over the edge, waiting for the hook to clear the top of the water. It took only a few seconds, but I thought that rope had to be a mile long. Finally I could see the metal shining just under the surface, and then it cleared and was in plain view.

“Empty. You didn’t get not one thing, Papa.”

He didn’t say a word, but just tossed the hook and line back into the dark waters of the well. Kerchunk.

He must have pulled that rope up at least a dozen times without anything to show for it, and I’d gotten bored watching him ages ago, but then a miracle happened. He started pulling up the rope, but it wouldn’t pull. Could it be? Yes! The moment had come!

“I believe we’ve got something. It’s definitely caught on something that’s too heavy for me to lift. You go stand on the porch so you’ll be safe and I’ll get in the truck and we’ll see what we’ve got.”

Papa looped the extra rope around the center of the truck’s bumper and into the seat he climbed, ready to do battle with the unseen rock at the bottom of the well.

The motor of the truck started up, blue smoke billowing from the tailpipe, and Papa slid it into gear and gave it the gas. At first nothing happened, just the truck easing forward, but finally the rope tightened. Then tightened some more. Finally, because it was stretched so tight, it looked more like a rubber band than a rope. From my spot on the front porch I could see the moment when those tongs reached the top of the well, but they seemed determined not to go any further, or maybe the rock just didn’t want to leave its place in the darkness. For a few precious seconds everything seemed to go still, but Papa had seen the top of the hooks too and was set and determined to finish the job. He pressed the gas and, just as another cloud of blue smoke rolled out, I saw everything in slow motion.

The rope had been banjo string tight anyway and the final push on the gas pedal not only got the tires to spinning but it brought the tongs just a tad further over the top of the well. Next thing I knew I heard a loud ‘Kerchunk!’ as the rock fell back into the water and I saw several pounds of metal go up into the air, being trailed by a long piece of rope. Up! Up! And into the air over the truck, then down with a loud ‘Boom!’ and the sound of glass shattering.

“Papa! Papa! Are you okay?” I ran to the truck just as he opened his door, but he didn’t get out. He just sat there looking ahead, where a windshield use to be, but now was just scattered all over the inside of the truck. After

shattering the windshield, the iron tongs landed on the hood of the truck, where they made a sizable dent and finally came to rest.

“Where’s the rock?” Papa wanted to know.

“It fell back into the well and that’s when all this happened.” I said as I waved my arms in the air.

“Dag-nab-bit! All this for nothing! Well, we’ll just have to try again.”

“Really? You’re going to do this again?” I waved my arms in the air again. It just seemed like the thing to do for some reason.

“Sure I’m going to try again. Look at the truck. I’ll be paying out to have it fixed, at least for a new windshield. What are the odds of something like this happening again? I’d say slim to none. Let’s go fishing for rocks!”

After another few minutes of dropping the gear and coming up empty, finally Papa said, “I think we have something.”

I watched him pull on the line with all his strength, leaning back on the rope. Nothing pulled loose. Maybe this was the one that we could get out today. I sure did hope so.

Now Papa tied the rope to the left side of his back bumper, which was made of a shiny metal. I supposed Papa thought he’d try something different and get better results.

After looping the rope around the bumper several times, Papa hopped into the driver’s seat and I went back to my spot on the front porch of the old house. I had a clear view of it all, since the well had been dug in the front yard, between the house and the road.

At first all seemed to be going as I expected. The truck moved forward slowly and the rope became tighter and tighter. The rock didn’t seem to be moving up the wall of the well, but I thought it probably would any minute. My eyes were fixed on the top of the well, expecting to see a big rock appear over the rim any time. I could even hear the screech as it moved up the wall and could picture it all so clearly in my mind.

“Wait!” I thought to myself. “Do rocks screech? That didn’t sound like a rock.”

That’s when I noticed the back bumper on Papa’s truck. The left corner where the rope was tied was rolling back like a banana peel. Since he was a tad hard-of-hearing, Papa just went right on giving it more gas, until half of that pretty chrome bumper was doubled back towards the middle. Finally, he stopped the truck and got out to see what was taking so long.

“Dag-nab-bit! First the windshield and now the bumper. I reckon the well wins for today. I give up until another time.”

“What are you going to do about the bumper? It looks pretty pitiful.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem. Watch and learn, girl.”

I did watch, as he proceeded to drive Ole Blue around the house and toward a big apple tree. Then he backed that truck up beside the tree and tied the bent side of the bumper to the trunk. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when he started backing up, away from that tree. The bumper had straightened out a little. That’s when Papa untied the rope and just backed the bumper up against the tree. There was some wrinkles and crinkles in the left side, but that apple tree had at least put everything back in the original position.

After one smashed windshield, one big dent on the truck’s hood, and a rear bumper that would always look just a bit droopy, chalk one victory up for the well.

As we walked back into the house, Mama was standing at the kitchen sink, which faced the road. She just had to ask,“ How did that go? How many rocks did you get out?”

Papa just mumbled and kept on walking through the house and into the living room where he took his shoes off and laid back on the couch for a rest. I figured he needed one, after all he’d done to his truck this morning.

The funny thing is, I was looking at Mama when she asked about this morning’s adventures. I’m pretty sure she had a twinkle of laughter lurking just beneath the surface when she said it, ‘specially since the kitchen window over the sink faces directly across the road from our old house…and the old well.

Phyllis Pendergrass is an author and artist who resides on Sand Mountain in Alabama. "The Well" is taken from her first book, Tomboy Princess, published by from Warner House Press.