By "shoring," I mean we
lined the walls with planks, which were driven into the ground with large
wooden mallets. The planks were braced apart with sticks at frequent
intervals. As the well hole grew deeper we had to rig up a bucket to haul
the dirt out. Our bucket was a soap box attached to a rope, which passed
through a pulley at the top of the well. The pulley was supported by a
tripod made by firmly lashing together the upper ends of three stout poles
and spreading their lower ends far enough apart to straddle the mouth of
the well, as shown in Fig. 282. After the well had been carried down to a
sufficient depth, we began laying the stone wall, which was to form the
permanent lining. We knew that the wooden walls would not do, because they
would soon decay. Our stone wall, which was built up of flat stones like
the chimney of the log house, was not very strong, I fear, and had not the
soil around it been pretty firm it would probably have caved in. However,
if it served no other purpose, it formed a fairly good finish for the
well.
[Illustration: Fig. 282. Digging the Well.]
The Windmill Tower.
[Illustration: Fig. 283. Frame for the Tower.]
The mouth of the well was carefully covered with planks while we
constructed the windmill above it.
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