THE POOR MAN'S WELL.
Among the Azores, is situated the beautiful Island of Fayal, with its orange-groves and profusion of flowers. But, notwithstanding the fruit and flowers, there is one thing which Americans who live there miss sadly, and that is fresh, cool water. There are no lakes or ponds, such as we have here; and so the people have to use rain-water, which they save in large tanks or cisterns.
There are a few wells on the island, which, as the water rises and falls in them twice in every twenty-four hours, are called "tide-wells." But there was a time, many years ago, when the people had neither cisterns nor wells, and were obliged to get water from hollows in the rocks. And this is the story of the first well.
The year 1699 was a year when scarcely any rain fell. The grain did not grow, the cows and sheep died from thirst, and many of the poor people also. Now there was a very rich man on the island, who had come here to live many years before, from another part of the world.
Though he was so rich, and might have done much good with his money, he was so stingy and so hard, that the people did not love him at all. But his bags of silver and gold did not buy him water; and at last the thought came to him, "Why! I will dig a well, as people used to do in my country. I will dig it on my own land, and no one shall have a drop of the water but myself."
So he hired men to come and dig the well; but he paid them only a little money, and was very unkind to them. They dug and they dug; but no water came. At last they said they would work no longer unless their master would promise them some of the water, and he promised them the use of the well for half of every day.
Now they dug with more patience; and one morning, as early as six o'clock, they suddenly found water. They claimed the privilege of using the well for the first six hours; and the master dared not refuse. As they were drawing the water, they noticed that it began to grow lower and lower in the well; and at twelve o'clock, the master's hour, none was left.