Notwithstanding all that old Riley could say, however, public opinion was against Hamp See. It was certain that he was dull in his lessons. He could not keep up with Mr. Penruddock's classes, and instead of studying his Latin verbs, he was perpetually interrupting the school by asking Mr. Penruddock to explain things like thunder and lightning, and the presence of shells in the rocks on the mountain, and the curious ways that plants have of taking care of themselves--things which had no relation to the work of the school. It was agreed that Riley Vaughn could not know anything about education, because he was not himself educated. It was even said--and this came to Riley's ears--that he was prejudiced against education.
Even Hamp's mother was discouraged. Hamp was always "pottering," she said, instead of attending to his books.
"Why," she said, "he's been fooling with a spring up on the hill back of the house the whole season through. He's laid pipes to bring the water down here, and now he's turned the whole house into a mill." Then she would show her visitor what Hamp had done. He had constructed an ingenious water-wheel with which to make the most of the power afforded by the spring, and had set it at a variety of tasks. A stretch of line shafting passed under the floor of the house, and bands were passed through the floor to the churn and the sewing-machine, and even the sausage-chopper could be attached at will. "I don't deny that it's handy, and saves work," said his mother. "And now he's made a sort of fan in the dining-room, and has set that going too, so that it keeps the flies off the table. If we had a baby in the house, I believe he'd make the water rock the cradle. But it's discouraging about his studies. Mr. Penruddock is in despair, and says he don't know what is to be made of the boy."
The summer proved to be a very dry one, and the gardens especially suffered for water. When the people began to complain, Hamp had an idea. He always had an idea when an emergency arose. He went into his mother's garden and worked all day, digging a trench down the middle, and making little trenches at right angles to the main one, so that each bed was surrounded by them, and the larger beds crossed as well. He was very careful to keep all these trenches on one level. When he had finished, he laid a drain from his water-wheel to the main trench, so that the waste water, after turning the wheel, was carried into the garden and emptied into the trench. Little by little the main trench filled; then the water trickled into the smaller trenches, and as the spring from which it came was a never-failing one, the garden was supplied with water throughout the dry, hot summer, and such a garden nobody in that region had seen that season.