"I reckon not," said Hank. "I got some folks about six mile west who want me to find them some dry ground to dig a good deep cellar."
"Ain't that kind of anti-dowsing?"
"It is, Makepeace, and it's a whole lot harder, too, in wettish country like this."
"Well, come back this way, then," said Makepeace, "and I'll save you a sip of the first water pulled up from your well."
"I'll do that," said Hank, "and gladly." That was an honor he wasn't often offered, that first sip from a well. There was power in that, but only if it was freely given, and Hank couldn't keep from smiling now. "I'll be back in a couple of days, sure as shooting.
The prentice boy come back with the spade and set right to digging. Just a shallow trench, but Hank noticed that the boy squared it off without measuring, each side of the hole equal, and as near as Hank could guess, it was true to the compass points as well. Standing there with the wand still rooted into the ground, Hank felt a sudden sickness in his stomach, having the boy so close. Only it wasn't the kind of sickness where you hanker to chuck up what you ate for breakfast. It was the kind of sickness that turns to pain, the sickness that turns to violence; Hank felt himself yearning to snatch the spade out of the boy's hands and smack him across the head with the sharp side of the blade.
Till finally it dawned on him, standing there with the wand a-trembling in his hand. It wasn't Hank who hated t his boy, no, sir. It was the water that Hank served so well, the water that wanted this boy dead.
The moment that thought entered Hank's head, he fought it down, swallowed back the sickness inside him. It was the plain craziest idea that ever entered his head. Water was water. All it wanted was to come up out of the ground or down out, of the clouds and race over the face of the earth. It didn't have no malice in it. No desire to kill. And anyway, Hank Dowser was a Christian, and a Baptist to boot - a natural dowser's religion if there ever was one. When he put folks under the water, it was to baptize them and bring them to Jesus, not to drownd them. Hank didn't have murder in his heart, he had his Savior there, teaching him to love his enemies, teaching him that even to hate a man was like murder.
Hank said a silent prayer to Jesus to take this rage out of his heart and make him stop wishing for this innocent boy's death.
As if in answer, the wand leapt right out of the ground, flew clear out of his hands and landed in the bushes most of two rods off.
That never happened to Hank in all his days of dowsing. A wand taking off like that! Why, it was as if the water had spurned him as sharp as a fine lady spurns a cussing man.
"Trench is all dug," said the boy.
Hank looked sharp at him, to see if he noticed anything funny about the way the wand took off like that. But the boy wasn't even looking at him. Just looking at the ground inside the square he'd just ditched off.
"Good work," said Hank. He tried not to let his voice shbw the loathing that he felt.
"Won't do no good to dig here," said the boy.
Hank couldn't hardly believe his ears. Bad enough the boy sassing his own master, in the trade he knew, but what in tarnation did this boy know about dowsing?
"What did you say, boy?" asked Hank.
The boy must have seen the menace in Hank's face, or caught the tone of fury in his voice, because he backed right down. "Nothing, sir," he said. "None of my business anyhow."
Such was Hank's built-up anger, though, that he wasn't letting the boy off so easy. "You think you can do my job too, is that it? Maybe your master lets you think you're as good as he is cause you got your knack with hooves, but let me tell you, boy, I am a true dowser and my wand tells me there's water here!"
"That's right," said the boy. He spoke mildly, so that Hank didn't really notice that the boy had four inches on him in height and probably more than that in reach. Prentice Alvin wasn't