[11-3] As the term is used in the law-books, a person is an infant until he is twenty-one years of age; though, probably the word infancy here means the same as childhood.
[11-4] Let us picture a large mill-pond with a race running out of one side of it past the old-fashioned mill, which has a big wooden water wheel on the outside of it.
[11-5] The dairy house was probably a low, broad building through which the water from the stream ran. The milkpans were set on low shelves or in a trough so that the water could run around them and keep the milk cool.
[12-6] If he could see the white-pebbled bottom of the well, it must have been a shallow one, or perhaps merely a square box built around a deep spring.
[12-7] Water is usually spoken of as an emblem of purity, not of truth; but sometimes truth is spoken of as hiding at the bottom of a well.
[12-8] The curb is the square box usually built around the mouth of the well to a height of a few feet, to protect the water from dirt. Sometimes three of the sides are carried up to a height of six or eight feet, and a roof is built over the whole, making a little house of the curb. The fourth side is left open, except for two or three feet at the bottom. In these old wells two buckets were often used. They were attached to a rope which ran over a wheel suspended from the roof of the well house. When a bucket was drawn up it was often rested on the low curb in front, while people drank from it.
[13-9] Blushing goblet alludes to wine or some other liquor that has a reddish color.
[13-10] Nectar was the drink of the old Greek gods, of whom Jupiter was the chief.
[13-11] Situation and plantation do not rhyme well, and situation is scarcely the right word to use. Location would be better, so far as the meaning is concerned.
