Harry was pining for her now in a much more rampant way than she had previously pined for him, and had revolved twenty impracticable schemes of restoring matters to their condition previous to the war. The inevitable laws of nature, however, that had caused all these mental wounds, helped to bring them to a crisis and finally to effect a cure. It was Sunday morning, and Harry had resolved twenty times he would join Katy on her way to church, for she went before her father to teach a class of Sunday scholars, and twenty times resolved that he would not. His father had convinced himself as many times that neighborly ill-will should be corrected at a sacrifice even of a little pride, and as often that he could not make the first advance; when a small voice was heard at the door, and electrified them both. It was not a sweet voice nor the tone rich, in fact it might be called harsh and unrefined, but the sound was pleasanter to Harry’s ears than any he had heard in two weeks. The voice belonged to the extra help of Mr. Goodlow’s household.
“Please, sir, master said I mussent, but could we have a little water from your well?”
Harry and his father gazed at each other and then at the girl in wonder.
“Please, sir,” she continued, seeing their bewildered air, and addressing herself to Harry in an injured tone, “our well has run itself dry. Ever since you built yours the water has been getting lower, and last night it all went. Master says it’s on account of the elevation, but I say it’s because yours is further down hill.”
“Do you mean to say you have no water at all?” said Harry.
“But I do, then, unless you call mud water; we managed to make tea last night by tying a new bit on to the rope; but wasn’t it bitter and gritty, though? You ought to have tasted it; but to-day it’s as thick as paste, and you know we cannot send a water cart on Sunday.”
“How did you manage for washing?”
“That’s how it comes we have no water for breakfast. We had saved up a little that had settled the worst down to the bottom, but we did not have enough to wash, and Miss Katy, when she tried to use the well water, came out all streaked, and used up all that we had put by; because, as she said, she would rather go without her breakfast than go dirty. I guess I wouldn’t, though.”
“But why did you not send to us before?” said Mr. Hartley, compassionately.
“Why, because master thought as he had ordered away your girl, you would do the like by me; unless he begged pardon, or something of that sort, and he did not feel equal to that after your throwing him overboard the day you went fishing.”