…my cellar, that is. Springtime rain is over-staying its welcome. If I open the cellar door, I hear water flowing across its uneven cement floor, with occasional punctuation by thumping sump pump.
My little sister’s Victorian house has a well built into its cellar. Back before city water mains, having a well in your house was the ultimate luxury. When the water table rises, you don’t feel so lucky!
When Marie and I were very little, we lived out in Candia, in a little house with a well. One summer, our well ran dry, and we were trundled around to various neighbors’ houses to take daily baths. Then the Artesian Well Man drilled us a well, with much loud banging of metal…very impressive! The next summer, everyone else’s well ran dry. It was our turn to host neighorhood shower parties.
Later, our family moved to Manchester’s North River Road–by this time, we had two more little brothers. Not far down the hill from our house, some little kid (was it maybe Chris Morris) lived in a house with a stream running through the sand floor of his cellar. We all thought this was simply magnificent. The house was Colonial, with foundation walls of fieldstone. It was as if a piece of the outdoor world had mysteriously been walled from the sky with four walls and a roof on it–but the stream kept running anyway.
In case you can’t tell, I’m hoping these fond thoughts of water will make me feel better about my own cellar.