"Thank you. I don't want to be quite as young as that."
The Fountain of Youth, one of the curiosities of St. Augustine, is on Myrtle avenue, two blocks north of the orange grove, and the four laughing young people were soon there.
"Is this really the fountain Ponce de Leon thought would give eternal youth?" asked Ruth, half-seriously, as they stood near the little roofed-over spring.
"That is the legend," declared Paul. "Of course that's not saying it's so. But the spring has one peculiar quality."
"What's that?" asked Russ.
"The waters rise and fall without any particular cause. Sometimes they are higher than at others, and none of the other wells, or springs, in this vicinity do that. So you see it may be miraculous after all."
"Let's try it," suggested Alice, who was always ready for anything new.
"Oh, but perhaps it isn't good water," objected Ruth, more cautious. "We may get typhoid, or something like that."
"Nonsense!" laughed Alice, but she looked questioningly at Paul.
"Lots of people drink the water," he said. "Allow me," and he lowered a small bucket attached to a rope made fast to the roof of the well.