the help of the others. Perhaps another foot, or another, or another . . .
My persistency never gained its true reward. The miners got thirty feet down then a man with a compressor and special drilling equipment tried drilling twenty-foot holes. Water was found in the end; but it was a lazy trickle of water taking its time to fill the bottom of the well. It still takes its time. And in October, when springs fall low, it can only pump seventy gallons before it is dry.
Our tomatoes, therefore, were dependent on the well up the lane; and we were lucky to secure the water without the expense of pumping for it. The reason was simple, though, to my kind of mind, it was difficult to understand. It was a question of gravity. The well up the lane was so much higher than the level of the greenhouse that, having dropped a copper pipe with perforated holes in the well and then, patiently filled the alkathene pipe between the well and the greenhouse with water, a stream came out of the tap by the greenhouse like a main.
It was not, however, always as clean as a main. This did not matter because part of the equipment for the automatic irrigation was a filter and this prevented even the smallest build-up of dirt from blocking the nozzles attending each plant. But the filter, of course, had periodically to be cleaned.
I noticed, however, in late June of this particular summer, that Jane was spending an inordinate amount of time attending to this filter. I could not feel such attention was justified; I liked Jane very much but I could not allow her to dally. I was particularly irked when I saw she was emptying the dirt from the filter into the pail. This was really foolish. I could not understand how she could justify her time in doing this. The filter needed only be rinsed. There was nothing more to it than that.
It was not so important that I had to make a fuss. Indeed it was only when I was in a worrying mood that I thought anything about it. She worked hard enough. If she slipped up by being slow on the filter, it balanced all the other good work she did. It was trivial. It was one of those small situations which only erupt when a boss seeks a quarrel.
‘What are you doing, Jane?’
It was just before the lunch hour, and I happened to pass Jane as she, barefooted, was bending earnestly over both filter and pail. She looked up at me so freshly, having noticed no note in my voice to suggest that, in reality, I was vexed with her, and said:
‘I’m rescuing the tadpoles.’
Then, of course, I saw what was happening. The suction of the pipe in the well up the lane was sucking the tadpoles, which abounded at that time of the year in the well, into the pipe which led to the greenhouse; and quickly, they were blocking the filter. Jane, having discovered what was happening, served both the tomato plants by cleaning the filter and the tadpoles by returning them to the well.
‘I take them up in my lunch hour back to the well,’ she said timidly, yet with a tiny note of defiance, ‘or at the end of the day.’ She had put them, of course, in the pail. That was how she was spending her time when she prompted my doubt about her. What could I say?
I was down on my knees beside her before I spoke. A tadpole, still alive, was clutched to the face of the filter, and Jane, with a stalk of couch grass, was easing it away. It was flabby. A tiny piece of flabbiness that, to rescue, would make all the clever people laugh. It was a thing alive, but why help it? What a strange waste of time to find pleasure in an object so unproductive. And yet this was the kind of pleasure that was the pulse of mankind, the creed of those who prefer to face the present rather than scurry away.
‘My dear Jane,’ I said in a very practical manner, ‘I’m all in favour of you helping the tadpoles . . . but they’ll only come back again through the pipe.’
She glanced up at me, just a flash, as if I were an ignorant man.
‘Only a few,’ she said, ‘the
My persistency never gained its true reward. The miners got thirty feet down then a man with a compressor and special drilling equipment tried drilling twenty-foot holes. Water was found in the end; but it was a lazy trickle of water taking its time to fill the bottom of the well. It still takes its time. And in October, when springs fall low, it can only pump seventy gallons before it is dry.
Our tomatoes, therefore, were dependent on the well up the lane; and we were lucky to secure the water without the expense of pumping for it. The reason was simple, though, to my kind of mind, it was difficult to understand. It was a question of gravity. The well up the lane was so much higher than the level of the greenhouse that, having dropped a copper pipe with perforated holes in the well and then, patiently filled the alkathene pipe between the well and the greenhouse with water, a stream came out of the tap by the greenhouse like a main.
It was not, however, always as clean as a main. This did not matter because part of the equipment for the automatic irrigation was a filter and this prevented even the smallest build-up of dirt from blocking the nozzles attending each plant. But the filter, of course, had periodically to be cleaned.
I noticed, however, in late June of this particular summer, that Jane was spending an inordinate amount of time attending to this filter. I could not feel such attention was justified; I liked Jane very much but I could not allow her to dally. I was particularly irked when I saw she was emptying the dirt from the filter into the pail. This was really foolish. I could not understand how she could justify her time in doing this. The filter needed only be rinsed. There was nothing more to it than that.
It was not so important that I had to make a fuss. Indeed it was only when I was in a worrying mood that I thought anything about it. She worked hard enough. If she slipped up by being slow on the filter, it balanced all the other good work she did. It was trivial. It was one of those small situations which only erupt when a boss seeks a quarrel.
‘What are you doing, Jane?’
It was just before the lunch hour, and I happened to pass Jane as she, barefooted, was bending earnestly over both filter and pail. She looked up at me so freshly, having noticed no note in my voice to suggest that, in reality, I was vexed with her, and said:
‘I’m rescuing the tadpoles.’
Then, of course, I saw what was happening. The suction of the pipe in the well up the lane was sucking the tadpoles, which abounded at that time of the year in the well, into the pipe which led to the greenhouse; and quickly, they were blocking the filter. Jane, having discovered what was happening, served both the tomato plants by cleaning the filter and the tadpoles by returning them to the well.
‘I take them up in my lunch hour back to the well,’ she said timidly, yet with a tiny note of defiance, ‘or at the end of the day.’ She had put them, of course, in the pail. That was how she was spending her time when she prompted my doubt about her. What could I say?
I was down on my knees beside her before I spoke. A tadpole, still alive, was clutched to the face of the filter, and Jane, with a stalk of couch grass, was easing it away. It was flabby. A tiny piece of flabbiness that, to rescue, would make all the clever people laugh. It was a thing alive, but why help it? What a strange waste of time to find pleasure in an object so unproductive. And yet this was the kind of pleasure that was the pulse of mankind, the creed of those who prefer to face the present rather than scurry away.
‘My dear Jane,’ I said in a very practical manner, ‘I’m all in favour of you helping the tadpoles . . . but they’ll only come back again through the pipe.’
She glanced up at me, just a flash, as if I were an ignorant man.
‘Only a few,’ she said, ‘the
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