[Illustration: THE HICKORY HILL HOUSE, BUILT IN 1857]
We called our second farm Hickory Hill, from its many fine hickory
trees and the long gentle slope leading up to it. Compared with
Fountain Lake farm it lay high and dry. The land was better, but it
had no living water, no spring or stream or meadow or lake. A well
ninety feet deep had to be dug, all except the first ten feet or so in
fine-grained sandstone. When the sandstone was struck, my father, on
the advice of a man who had worked in mines, tried to blast the rock;
but from lack of skill the blasting went on very slowly, and father
decided to have me do all the work with mason's chisels, a long, hard
job, with a good deal of danger in it. I had to sit cramped in a space
about three feet in diameter, and wearily chip, chip, with heavy
hammer and chisels from early morning until dark, day after day, for
weeks and months. In the morning, father and David lowered me in a
wooden bucket by a windlass, hauled up what chips were left from the
night before, then went away to the farm work and left me until noon,
when they hoisted me out for dinner.
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