THE SPRING ON DELANEY
By
Benjamin Kensey
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PUBLISHED BY:
The Spring On Delaney
Copyright © 2011 by Benjamin Kensey
own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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THE SPRING ON DELANEY
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My pa always told us to keep family business in the family but I don't think he would mind my telling you about the old house and the water. I'm not one for telling stories but this isn't a story, it's just what happened. Jenny, she's my sister, well she's got words enough for ten tongues, she could talk the feathers off a rooster if you gave her the chance - and only some of it would be true - but I'll limit myself to the facts.
We had a townhouse which was situated about two blocks from the courthouse, on Vine and Delaney. My grandpa over on Davis Lane had won that house in a game of poker when Buchanan was still in the White House. I was never convinced by the tale on account of the winning hand, which changed every time he told us. Surrounded by those dusty books and the big tin globe he had from England, Grandpa Mullard would draw it out until we were begging him to tell us. We were just play acting, of course. Well, I was.
"I said to him, 'if you think you've got me beat, put up that old house of yours.' I told him the damn thing was falling to pieces anyhow." So with the turn of five cards and a flurry of kings or queens or nines, one time a royal flush, number 37 Delaney passed to Charles Mullard, my pa's father.
My parents moved there the day they got wed and I didn't arrive for another four years. Befitting any house that had some years between its bricks, there were some war stories about it. When I was about six, I told my ma and pa over supper that I had taken a disliking to vegetables. My ma put down her knife and fork and told me that I had to eat my Vidalia onions, my peas, and my okra. She said the greens would give me fine beams and a noble aspect. I never understood it, but later, when I was a little older, I heard all about a true Southern hero, Stonewall Jackson, who had spent two nights in the house in '63. He'd commented to the lady of the house on the morning of his departure that the house had "fine beams and a noble aspect". Jenny, in her time, pushed food about the plate too and I let her know it wasn't the Mullard way.
"What are beams?" she asked and I let my ma take that question.
The houses in that part of town were crammed in pretty tight and we didn't have that much of a garden. Many a times of a summer, we'd walk over to Aunt Margaret's house by the Locksley Creek, a place we had space to run and fall. Jenny came with us too sometimes, though mostly, she preferred the company of the Ellis girls. But when the weather was inclement or the sun beat down just too strong, we liked to stay there with our cherry tree and the chickens. At the end of the garden, by the wall which separated us from the Pettigrew property, there were ants. They were fearsome red things that would sting you a good one if you fell in among them as I did at least once a year.
The house itself was narrow, but we spread ourselves thinly over its three floors. I was given the room at the top, which is where I liked to imagine Stonewall during his short stay. Maybe he stood at the window, from where you could see the roof of the courthouse and a carpet of spring cherry blossom, and was inspired to pen the rousing speech he gave a week later at Cooper's Crossing as the Union soldiers gathered nearby.
The Delaney household was completed by Liberty, a mongrel with the colouring of coffee splodges on fine lace napery. He was lazy and my pa said dead fleas wouldn't fall off that dog. When the sun was unbearable, Liberty would take himself to the corner of the pantry and lie on the stone floor, by the corn flour sacks. Once he was set there of an afternoon, only tender meat and slow cats would tempt him out.
Liberty was an old dog that I never saw as a blur, just lying still some place. We both entered the world in 1886 so he was slowing down some just as my sails were filling with wind. One afternoon, in the summer of my twelfth birthday, I found him lying in the shadow of the Pettigrew wall at the end of the yard. The ants there had taught Liberty a few things about putting his wet nose near them, so I wondered why he was there.
"What's up, Liberty?" I said as I walked towards him. He looked around slowly, water dripping off his muzzle. There spread out before him was a small lake of water. It was bubbling up in the middle and came back about three yards from the wall. I leaned in for a closer look. The water was oozing up from the large crack where the ants made their home. I'd put every irritant known to man down that ants nest: boiling water, cayenne pepper, my ma's chilli sauce, hair lacquer, even hot liquid wax. But those little red devils had always come scuttling back. Today, thousands of them were on the surface of the water, kicking their legs in vain at the torrent which had swept them away. At the water's edge, the ants were crawling over each other. From the entrance to their nest, now submerged, air bubbles were popping up every few seconds and more ants, many dead, bobbed up with them. I looked down at Liberty whose old eyes just told me he was glad for a cool drink.
When my pa saw the water later that afternoon, it was deeper and five yards across. He stood there scratching his head, looking as confused as a feather in a tornado. My ma was at his side.
"Well, ain't that a trick," my pa said.
"It's those Pettigrews' still," my ma declared. She reserved the most withering of her sneers for the neighbours and their brewing habits.
"I think it might be natural," my pa said, though he didn't seem too sure of himself. Jenny and me, we just looked at all those drowned ants and smiled.
My pa went and spoke to the geologist at the state college. He went by the name of Daniel Stephenson and was one of the tallest folks I'd ever laid eyes on and I reckon if he fell down, he'd be halfway home. Anyhow, he came by the Delaney house and told us the water had most likely been sitting under the town for hundreds of years, pushing up towards the surface in its own way.
"That water is going to get up on top whatever you do," he explained to us. "I had an aunt over in Gosford, a large girl. She's resting in peace in the marble orchard now, but twice a year, they held a dance at the farmers' co-operative and she would squeeze herself into this European corset, all whale bone and cotton ties. She began to get into that thing at three and the sun was long set by the time the last lace was tied in place. But you know, like this water here, the flesh of my Aunt May found a way up, normally in her bosom, something she didn't mind too much."
Well that just about killed Jenny and me and we fell about laughing. I wanted to know more.
"Mr. Stephenson, do you think the ants caused the water to come up?"
"I suppose it's just possible," he replied. "Perhaps they weakened the soil just enough deep underground. I saw three badgers drowned in a spring once over near state road 20."
"How long is this going to last?" my ma asked, standing there in her white muslin dress. "Is the water going to keep spurting up like this?"
We all looked down at the deepening pool. It had been four days and my pa had put out planks of some description, just to keep us back, stop us from falling in.
"It will flow for as long as it flows, Mrs. Mullard. It might stop tomorrow. Nature cannot be tamed by mere brick or wood. Get it tested. You might be able to sell it."
Well, quick as a wink, that changed everything. My pa's eyes opened wide and I could see he was thinking about making enough money to burn a wet mule. The professor explained the tests needed. "You need to see there's nothing bad in it, nothing that will cause any type of affliction," Mr. Stephenson said. "Run a sample over to Georgetown. They have a laboratory there and can tell you in a couple of days."
My pa was at the railroad station at seven the next morning, three
flasks in his case, each carrying a quart of finest Delaney Spring Water, as we were calling it. My pa had me wade into the centre where it was still bubbling up.
"Get it from there, Albert, where it's fresh and clear. We don't want no ants in there."
He was gone two days and when he came back, he had a piece of paper from the Georgetown Public Health Co-Operative proving that our water was good drinking and wouldn't cause malaise in anyone drinking it. We were going into business.