It took nearly three months to finish the water system, but it has proved wonderfully convenient and satisfactory.  During seven years I have not spent more than $50 for changes and repairs.  We struck bed-rock at 197 feet, drilled 27 feet into this rock, and found water which rose to within 50 feet of the surface and which could not be materially lowered by the constant use of a three-inch power-pump.  The water was milky white for three days, in spite of much pumping; and then, and ever after, it ran clear and sweet, with a temperature of 54 deg.  F. Well and water being satisfactory, I cheerfully paid the well man $448 for the job.

Meantime I contracted for a tank twelve by twelve feet, to be raised thirty feet above the well on eight timbers, each ten inches square, well bolted and braced, for $430,—­I to put in the foundation.  This consisted of eight concrete piers, each five feet deep in the clay, three feet square, and capped at the level of the ground with a limestone two feet square and eight inches thick.  These piers were set in octagon form around the well, with their centres seven feet from the middle of the bore, making the spread of the framework fourteen feet at the ground and ten at the platform.  The foundation cost $32.  A Rider eight-inch, hot-air, wood-burning, pumping engine (with a two-inch pipe leading to the tank, and a four-inch pipe from it), filled the tank quickly; and it was surprising to see how little fuel it consumed.  It cost $215.

I have now to confess to a small extravagance.  I contracted with a carpenter to build an ornamental tower, fifty-five feet high, twenty feet across at the base, and fifteen feet at the top, sheeted and shingled, with a series of small windows in spiral and a narrow stairway leading to a balcony that surrounded the tower on a level with the top of the tank.  This tower cost $425; but it was not all extravagance, because a third of the expense would have been incurred in protecting the engine and making the tank frost-proof.

To distribute the water, I had three lines of four-inch pipe leading from the tank’s out-flow pipe.  One of these went 250 feet to the house, with one-inch branches for the gardens and lawn; another led east 375 feet, past the proposed sites of the cottage, the farm-house, the dairy, and other buildings in that direction; while the third, about 400 feet long, led to the horse barn and the other projected buildings.  From near the end of this west pipe a 1-1/2-inch pipe was carried due north through the centre of the five-acre lot set apart for the hennery, and into the fields beyond.  This pipe was about 700 feet long.  Altogether I used 1100 feet of four-inch, and about 2200 feet of smaller pipe, at a total cost of $803.  All water pipes were placed 4-1/2 feet in the ground to be out of the reach of frost, and to this day they have received no further attention.

The trenches for the pipes were opened by a party of five Italians whom a railroad friend found for me.  These men boarded themselves, slept in the barn, and did the work for seventy-five cents a rod, the job costing me $169.