The Wedding Band

“I can’t find it, Queenie,” Papa called from the bottom of the well.  Queenie was the pet name that Pap would sometimes call Mama.

Mama’s face fell.  “Be sure you can’t find it before you come back up,” Mama answered.

“Wait, wait, I think I have it!  Yes!  This is it!  Queenie, I have your wedding band in my hand.  Whoops, the water washed it out of my hand.  Let me find it again.  Here, here it is!  It has settled down in a hole.  Now I have it.  I am coming up and bring the ring with me.”

The wedding band was nice.  It was yellow gold, thick, wide, and very pretty.  Mama was proud of the ring and always kept it on.  A few days earlier she was drawing water when it slipped off her finger and fell into the well.  That night, when Papa came in from the fields, she was sad as she told him about what happened.

“Don’t worry about it,” Papa told her.  “It is about time to clean the well out again anyway.  In a few days after I get the crops plowed out we will clean the well and I will find you wedding band for you.”

So about a week later we heard Papa calling us.  “T.M. and G.B., get out here.  Brownie (his pet name for me), you and Clarence get out here and watch every bucket of water we pull-up to see if your Mama’s ring is in it.”

Mama also came out of the kitchen to help.  Only Lois was busy inside the house.  Papa and my older brothers began drawing the water out of the well.  As they poured the water onto the ground, we intently watched to see if Mama’s ring had been drawn up with the water.  Hours passed as they emptied bucket after bucket of water.  After three hours the water was finally low enough for someone to go down inside the well.  Papa and my brothers had to work hard and fast to empty the well.  As they drew the water out, more water was coming into the well from the underground stream that fed the well.

“The water is low enough now.  Hand me the rope,”  Papa took the rope and tied one end around the post that held the porch roof.  The other end he threw down the well.  “Who is going down first?  G.B., you come and go down first and see what’s down there.”  So G.B., with his legs locked around the rope, slowly began lowering himself down into the well.

It was scary watching him as he descended into the well.  As he got deeper and deeper we could no longer see him, but we could hear him as his feet would swing over and hit the rocks that lined our well all the way to the bottom.  When he to the bottom he found a dipper and a tin cup which had fallen into the well since the last time it had been cleaned out.  The water in the bottom of the well was getting deeper and deeper from the underground stream.

After a short time G.B. called to us.  “Get me out of here, the water is so deep that I cannot reach down to the bottom to feel for Mama’s ring.”

“Hold on to the rope tight, G.B.  We are going to pull you up.”  So up he came.  Once again Papa and my brothers drew bucket after bucket out of the well until the level of the water was very low.

Then Papa lowered himself into the well.  “Be careful, Papa.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll be ok.  I am going to find that wedding band.”

We all waited anxiously around the edge of the well for Papa to find the ring.  As we all heard him say, “I am climbing out now and bringing the ring with me,” we smiled and moved back from the edge of the well as Papa climbed the rope.  When he reached the top he stood-up and placed the wedding band on Mama’s outstretched finger.

“Just like if they were married again,” I thought.  And once more everything was right with the world.