In these wild-timbered lands, the Creator tests our mettle, especially when the heavens withhold their bounty and the land bakes hard for months on end. When our farm wells offer only dust, many a soul has found their earthly salvation in a certain hidden generosity of the earth. One must venture for it, to be sure, leaving the more traveled paths and heading deep into the rugged, pine-clad hill country, into those secluded hollows where the lesser water-runs take their start. There, in a quiet fold of that broken land, even when all else is parched, weary souls discover a hidden mercy, for the ground itself offers a tireless, pure refreshment against the harshest dry spell. That silent, dependable issuance has been the very lifeblood for our families and our stock.
The nearby timber mill, with its great steam engine devouring both pine and water to drive its saws, also came to depend upon this unfailing seepage when lesser sources vanished. It’s a place we speak of with a kind of reverence, more than just damp ground; it's a promise the land keeps.
