Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1884 — Paddling the Well-water. [ARTICLE]

Paddling the Well-water.

A neighbor returning from the summer vacation found the water in his well had become putrid. Of course it was a dead cat. John was sent down to examine. He reported a bad smell, but no cat. Another descent, this time a good light. He bawled up,“l can see every part of the bottom, and all round, and I tell you there ain’t no cat nor nothin’ down here!” A consultation among the neighbors was now held. Two rheumatic old men, leaning on canes and squirting tobaccojuice, enlarged luminously. The universe seemed to be rather their pet theme, but finally they got down to plain work, and explained very clearly how things went on under the ground. They showed by various gestures aud illustrations, how the gases and the substances worked upon each other all up and down and through the various passages and crevices and caverns of the earth, and how sometimes, in spite of everything you could do, the water would turn bad, and then no power on earth could turn it back again. Each voted that this very thing had happened to the neighbor’s well, and that nothing could be done but to fill it up and dig another. When this conclusion had been emphasized by various punchings with their canes in the ground, our blind neighbor, having felt his way to the spot where the committee had just pronounced its verdict, and having only heard the dead-cat theory, enunciated as follows: “The water has turned putrid from stagnation; that’s the dead cat. You stir it up well for two hours, and the water will be just as sweet as ever.” John was sent down to try it, though the old men advised that he should first look up a putrid carcass of some kind, and stir that awhile, to see whether stirring such things would sweeten them. But the man took his paddle down and began. At the end of half an hour, he bawled up, “She’s all right now. Send down your backet and try it.” The water was a little stale, but not bad. Another good stir, and the water was sweet. Since then we have advised the “Movement Cure” in a number of sick or putrid wells and cisterns, and with success.— Dr. Dio Lewis.