Taking Tales: Instructive and Entertaining Reading

by William Henry Giles Kingston

But he was wont to growl out, “The wind is sure to drop when I have most grist to grind—just to spite me.”

Hillbrook was a nice spot. There was the brook which ran out of the hill, fresh and pure, right through the village. There was not water enough to turn a mill, but enough to give the people right good water to drink and to cook with. It is a sad thing not to have good water. Bad water, from ponds, or ditches, or wells near drains, makes many people ill, and kills not a few. The people of Hillbrook prized their good water. They said, “we have good water and pure air, and now what we have to do is to keep our cottages clean and we shall be well.” They did keep the floors and the walls of their cottages clean, but somehow fevers still came. At times, when the sun was hot, many people were ill: no one could tell how it was.

There was a farm to let, called Hillside farm. No one would take it, for it was said that the land was cold and wet, and too open. At last one Farmer Grey came to see it. The rent was low, the terms fair; “I’ll take it on a long lease,” he said; “and if God wills it, ere many years go by, it will yield good crops.” Farmer Grey soon gave work to many hands, he paid good wages too, and was always among his men to see that each man did his proper work. He put deep down in the ground miles and miles of drain pipes, it was said.

Hillside was next to the Mill farm. When Mark Page saw the tons and tons of dung of all sorts, chalk, and guano, which comes from over the sea, put on the land, he said that Farmer Grey had put more gold on it than he would ever get out of it. Farmer Grey said, “Bide a bit, neighbour, and we shall see.”

Farmer Grey heard some people one day talk about their good water and fine air and clean cottages, and yet that fevers came to the place. So he went into the village, and walked from cottage to cottage: “Look here, what is this hole for?” he asked one; “I must hold my nose while I stand near it. Why it’s just under the room where some of you sleep!”

“Oh, that’s just a hole where we empty slops, and throw in cabbage stalks and dirt of all sorts,” said the good woman; “we take it out sometimes to spread on the garden.”

“Now hear me, dame,” said Farmer Grey, “that hole is just a nest sure to hatch a fever some day; drain it off, fill it up, and dig a new one at the end of the garden, and take care that none of the drainings run into your brook.”

“Why is this green ditch close under your window, dame?” he asked of another.

“Why you see, farmer, it is there, it has always been there, and it’s so handy just to empty the slops and such-like dirt,” said the dame; “to be sure it does smell bad sometimes, but that can’t be helped.”

“Hear me, dame,” said Farmer Grey, “I have a notion that God lets bad smells come out of such muck just to show us that if we breathe them they will do us harm; the bad air which comes out of the muck mixes with the air we are always taking into our insides, and that makes us ill. You had one child die last summer of fever, and one is now ill. Now just do you get your good man to drain that off when he comes home, and tell him that he need not come to work till after breakfast to-morrow, or noon, if he has not done it.”