2018.06.28

It's Thursday.

One morning Mr. Scott came while Pa was eating breakfast. They heard him shout it was sunup and ask Pa to go. Pa drank his coffee and went out. The windlass began to creak and Pa began to whistle. Laura and Mary were washing the dishes and Ma was making the big bed, when Pa’s whistling stopped. They heard him say and shout Scott. Then he called Ma to come quickly. Ma ran out of the house. Laura ran after her. Pa said that Scott was fainted or something down here and he had got to go down after him. Ma asked if he had sent down the candle. Pa answered no and that he had thought Scott had done that and he had asked Scott if it had been all right, and Scott had said it had been. Pa cut the empty bucket off the rope and tied the rope firmly to the windlass. Ma said that he couldn’t and he mustn’t. Pa said that he had got to. Ma said he couldn’t. Pa said that he would make it all right and he wouldn’t breathe till he got out, and they couldn’t let him die down there. Ma said fiercely to ask Laura to keep back. So Laura kept back. She stood against the house and shivered. Ma didn’t let Pa go and asked him to get on Patty and go for help. Pa said that there wasn’t time. Ma said that if she couldn’t pull him up, if he keeled over down there and she couldn’t pull him up. Pa said that he had got to. He swung into the well. His head slid out of sight, down the rope. Ma crouched and shaded her eyes, staring down into the well.