The Young Surveyor Part 25

"How do you mean? It doesn't seem quite--ah--practicable, to move a spring that way."

"I don't mean the spring itself, of course, but the water. You might have that running, a constant stream, in your kitchen or back-room."

"I apprehend your drift," said Betterson, helping Jack to a piece of prairie chicken. "You mean, bring it in pipes."

"Thank you. Precisely."

"But I apprehend a difficulty; it is not easy to make water run up hill."

Jack smiled, and blushed a little, at Betterson's polite condescension in making this mild objection.

"Water running down hill may force itself up another hill, if confined in pipes, I think you will concede."

"Most a.s.suredly. But it will not rise again higher than its source. And the spring is lower than we are,--lower than our kitchen sink."

"I don't quite see that," replied Jack, with the air of a candid inquirer. "I have been over the ground, and it didn't strike _me_ so."

"It certainly looks to be several feet lower," said Betterson; and the boys agreed with him.

"We generally speak of going _down_ to the spring," said Rufe. "We go down the road, then down the bank of the ravine, and then a little way up the other bank. I don't know how we can tell just how much lower it is. We can't see the spring from the house."

"If I had my instruments here, I could tell you which is lower, and how much lower, pretty soon. While I am waiting for Snowfoot, (I can't go home, you know, without Snowfoot!) I may, perhaps, do a bit of engineering, as it is."

CHAPTER XXIII.

JACK'S "BIT OF ENGINEERING."

The boys got around Jack after dinner, and asked him about that bit of engineering.

"In the first place," said Jack, standing outside the door, and looking over toward the spring, hidden by intervening bushes on a ridge, "we must have a water-level, and I think I can make one. Get me a piece of s.h.i.+ngle, or any thin strip of wood. And I shall want a pail of water."

A s.h.i.+ngle brought, Jack cut it so that it would float freely in the pail; and, having taken two thin strips of equal length from the sides, he set them up near each end, like the masts of a boy's boat.

"Now, this is our level," he said; "and these masts are the sights. To see that they are exact, we will look across them at some object, then turn the level end for end, and look across them again; if the range is the same both ways, then our sights are right, are they not? But I see we must lay a couple of sticks across the pail, to hold our level still while we are using it."

The boys were much interested; and Link said he didn't see what anybody wanted of a better level than that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TESTING THE LEVEL.]

"It will do for the use we are going to make of it," said Jack; "but it might not be quite convenient for field service; you couldn't carry a pail of water, and a floating s.h.i.+ngle with two masts, in your overcoat-pocket, you know. We'll aim at a leg of that grindstone. Go and stick your knife where I tell you, Link."

Jack soon got his level so that it would stand the test, and called the boys to look.

"Here! you stand back, Chokie!" cried Link; while Rufe and Wad, one after the other, got down on the ground and sighted across the level at the knife-blade.

"Now," Jack explained, "I am going to set this pail of water in your kitchen window, by the sink. That will be our starting-point. Then I want one of you boys to go, with a long-handled pitchfork, in the direction of the spring, as far as you can and keep the pail in sight; then set up your fork, and pin a piece of white paper on it just where I tell you. As I raise my hand, you will slide the paper up; and, as I lower my hand, you will slip it down."

Wad and Link both went with the fork, which they set up on the borders of the woodland, back from the road. Then Wad, wrapping a piece of newspaper about the handle, held it there as high as his head, with a good strip of it visible above his hand.

Jack, standing in the kitchen, looked across the sights of his level placed in the open window, and laughed.

"What do you think, Rufe? Is the paper high enough?"

"It ought to be a foot or two higher," was Rufe's judgment.

"_I_ say _a foot_ higher," remarked Lord Betterson, coming up behind.

"What do you say, Vinnie?"

"I think the paper is too high."

"Now look across the level," said Jack.

All were astonished; and Lord Betterson could hardly be convinced that the level was constructed on sound principles. It showed that the top of the paper should be just below Wad's knee.

"Now we will take our level," said Jack, after the paper was pinned in its proper place, "and go forward and make another observation."

He chose a place at the top of the ridge beyond Wad, where, after cutting a few bushes, he was able to look back and see the fork-handle, and also to look forward and see the spring. There he set his pail on the ground, waited for the water to become still, adjusted his level, and caused a second strip of paper to be pinned to the fork-handle, in range with the sights.

The boys then gathered around the fork, while Jack, taking a pocket-rule from his coat, ascertained that the second paper was six feet and an inch above the first.

"Which shows that our level is now six feet and an inch higher than it stood on the kitchen window," said he. "Now let's see how much higher it is than the spring."

Link was already on his hands and knees by the pail, turning the sights in range with the spring on the farther side of the little ravine. He suddenly flapped his arms and crowed.

"No need of setting the fork over there," he said. "The spring is _almost_ as high as the pail!"

"Let's be exact," said Jack; and he went himself and thrust the fork, handle downward, into the basin of the spring. "Now, Link, you be the engineer; show your skill; tell me where to fix this paper."

Link was delighted with the important part a.s.signed him.

"Higher!" he commanded, from behind the pail. "Not quite so high. Not quite so low. Now just a millionth part of an inch higher--there!"

"A millionth part of an inch is drawing it rather fine," said Jack, as he pinned the paper.

Afterward, going and looking across the level, he decided that Link had taken a very accurate aim. Then, his pocket-measure being once more applied, the paper was found to be only seven inches higher than the water in the basin.

"Seven inches from six feet one inch, leaves five feet six inches as the height of the spring water above the level of our sights at the kitchen window. Now, I measured, and found they were there thirteen inches higher than the bottom of the sink; which shows that if you carry this water in pipes, you can have your spout, or faucet, thirteen inches higher than the bottom of your sink, and still have a head of water of five feet and six inches, to give you a running stream."

The boys were much astonished, and asked how it happened that they had been so deceived.

"You have unconsciously based all your calculations on the fact that you go _down_ to Peakslow's. The road falls a little all the way. But it doesn't fall much between your house and the place where you turn into the woodland. There you take a path among the bushes, which really rises all the way, though quite gradually, until you pa.s.s the ridge and go down into the ravine. Vinnie hasn't been accustomed to talk of going down to the spring, as you have; and so, you see, she was the only one who thought Wad at first placed his paper too high. Perhaps this doesn't account for your mistake; but it is the best reason I can give."

"How about the pipes?" Rufe asked.