Chapman laughed. There is not much wealth even on eighteen shillings for a family of ten! But the more the merrier, he said, when his friends commiserated him for having so many mouths to fee.
"Have you seen th' booy Tommy since th' mornin'?" asked Annie.
"No," he said; "I've bin after that dowser since I giv up work. He's all right up there. I allus said that was th' right place for 'm, though you was so set on keepin' him here."
"'Twasn't so much that as he wouldn't go, poor booy. He did beg me that hard not to send him away, I hadn't the heart to; and he'd 'a bin here now if Mr. Rutland hadn't come and carried him away in his own arms. And I'm thankful enough now that I let him go, for they let me go up and see him this tea-time, and he was a-lyin' there so comfortable, with plenty a' coolin' drink by his side, and Mrs. Davies lookin' after him a lot better than I could," said Annie with a sigh; but somehow she was learning to recognize her own shortcomings, and realizing how unsuitable a place her cottage was for illness.
"And he say to me, 'Mother,' he say, 'I do very well here; don't you take on about me'—for I couldn't help feelin' a bit bad a-leavin' of him there, in spite of all I see of the comfort round him. O Tom, the booards was that clean and the room that sweet!"
"Yis, I know," said Tom sympathetically; "and let's hope, now he's away, poor boy, the others will escape the fever. Anyways, the first thing to do is to git pure water, and I've set my mind on that, Annie gal; so don't yew try to put me off th' job."
"No—o, I won't," said Annie, as cheerfully as she could; but she didn't really like it, all the same, though the eighteen shillings a week dazzled her eyes.
The next morning Chapman and his mate and some half-dozen other men presented themselves at the meeting, and were taken on at the wells. Four of them were sent to the one by the railway station nearest the village, three were employed to empty one of the infected wells, and our two friends, Chapman and Martin, were sent with a couple of men, who had come out from Ipswich, to start the one over the spring the dowser had marked on the edge of the common, between the churchyard and Gravel-pit Lane, just as Annie had hoped.
The well-sinking committee, composed of the vicar, the doctor, the squire's agent Mr. Jones, Mr. Barlow, and three of the principal tradesmen in Willowton, lost no time in setting to work that afternoon. Boxer, the largest carpenter in the place, got an order for two cylinders or zones, to be made of the strongest oak planks, and well clamped, in the fashion of a barrel. These cylinders, which were, of course, circular, were about three feet in height, and measured about seven feet in diameter. They were made with an overhanging edge to hold and retain in their places the bricks that were to weight them as they sank into the soil; and a supply of sharp new spades and picks was sent to each well-side by the village ironmonger. Apparently every one was going to reap some benefit from this new scheme, and the prospect of good water, even to the most sceptical, could not fail to be popular.
Before the evening was out collecting boxes "For the New Wells" had been put in conspicuous places on the counters of each of the shops, and a large one was fastened on to the church door. There was one placed in a prominent position at the post-office, and old Jimmy tramped off to the station with the doctor's compliments to the stationmaster, and "would he put one in the waiting-room?" Of course the stationmaster was agreeable to this, and Jimmy had the satisfaction of seeing the box he brought hung on a nail near the ticket-collector's window, and of hearing the chink of the station-master's own contribution, and the promise from each of the two porters of all the money they would get in tips for the next three days.