Carrying water on the head reminds me of a little negro girl I once saw in the South. This girl had been to a spring to get a pail of water. The pail was so large and the girl was so small that she had a hard time of it as she staggered along, holding the handle of the pail with both hands, and with the greatest difficulty keeping it from touching the ground.
I pitied the poor little creature, for her load was a great deal too heavy for her.
But at length she reached a stump of a tree, and by great efforts she got the pail on the top of this. Then she stooped down and managed to slide the pail from the stump to the crown of her head.
Then she stood up. She was all right! She seemed to forget that she had a load, and skipped away as if she had nothing heavier on her head than a spring bonnet. She did not go directly to the house where she was to carry the water, but trotted over to where some children were playing, and began running around in a perfectly easy and unconcerned way, not appearing to think at all of her pail. But she did not spill a drop of the water.
The Southern negroes are very dexterous in this matter of carrying things on their heads.
On some of the water-melon plantations there may sometimes be seen long lines of men walking from the fields to the boats which are to be loaded with these melons, and each man carries a water-melon under each arm and one on his head.
Sometimes one of these men will drop a water-melon from under his arm, but no one ever drops one from his head.
Such a thing would be considered a disgrace.
I think it is likely that very few of us would ever have a pail of water or a water-melon, if we were obliged to carry either of them very far on our heads.