The Spring

Personal Memoir –
Allen Markle

There had been an argument between a couple of the guys on the lacrosse team; curiously, about the fine art of bathing. Specifically, concerning the merits of the shower or the bath-tub. The whole conversation went to hell when the tub bather had mentioned taking a face-cloth with him. 

“A face-cloth!” the shower guy chortled. “You sit in the tub and then wash your face with the same water? How CLEAN is that?”

He seemed to feel that such an act was beyond reason. His attitude stirred a memory in me and I couldn’t contain myself.

“Honestly?” I asked “Are you trying to tell me that you always had running water in that house you grew up in?” Dirt floored shack would have fit better but I managed to think of that in time not to say it!

“Myself, I can remember stripping naked in the yard and waiting impatiently for my father who was just home from work. He would wash up in the big oak rain-barrel that sat at the corner of our house. Once he had finished he would lift me up and drop me into the barrel. ‘Lifebuoy, the soap that floats’ would be bobbing there and it was a game to see if I could grab the soap, lather up, and hang onto the edge of the barrel.  Before sinking into the depths.”

Most folks kept a rain-barrel filled with water from the roof, directed there by a V-shaped trough beneath the eave. It saved having to pump water from a well, which we didn’t have; or carrying from a spring which we had. We appreciated that barrel more than most because our spring was at the bottom of a hill.  There was about a hundred yards of uphill between the spring and the house.

Sometimes when you looked into the barrel you could watch mosquito larva heading away from the surface; heading for safety in deeper water. After we had finished washing, their carcases floated with the soap scum. The barrel water was never used for drinking although I’m sure I choked a bit down sometimes when I washed up with Dad.

My younger brother would be there too, and sometimes Dad would hold him in the water so he could cool down after a dusty, hot summer day. We would giggle and splash and enjoy the country tub. Later, that same water would be used for the laundry which once hung on the line might be rinsed somewhat by a passing shower. And the barrel would be refilled and be ready for more impromptu bathing.

When we had finished our baths, Mom would be there with fresh towels to wrap us up. Our parents would each lift one of us and carry us into the house, to fresh clothes and supper. For all of those who believe that water comes from a plastic bottle or a tap, it wasn’t always so. Our drinking and cooking water came from that spring; a spring that bubbles out of the ground into a dark pool where the sand and fine gravel still dances and trembles in the gentle currents of its’ upwelling. 

But before the hydro came and before Mr. Barnett explained to Dad that the water could be pumped up the hill in a pipe, we carried water. “We need more water!” Mom would say and Dad would pick up the pails.

“Come on Allen. We’ve got to go to the spring.”

We would walk down the hill, scramble down the bank from the paved road and enter the cool shade of the alders and fir trees. Along a path that was fringed with nettles and jewel-weed and sedges. At the spring, right there beside the path, you would find the biggest patch of long-stemmed blue violets in the world; or at least in my world. There was an enormous stump where a yellow birch had stood and behind that, a big white spruce tree. Between those two was a huge boulder.  Under one edge of the rock was a pool of water that my dad and Grandfather would keep clear of debris and shovelled deep enough that you could dip the water pail. Up-side down on the big rock there was always an enamel cup. Anyone visiting the spring could fill that cup with water, swish it around to rinse it and then dip, and drink. It was cold and clear, and as much as you wanted. Everyone along Brunel knew the spring was there.

A few times I watched as someone would stop with a team of horses and plunge down the bank with a horse pail, the team left to blow and shuffle by the roadside. The harness would rattle and creak and dust would puff around the animals’ big hooves. They could smell the spring and wanted to drink. When the big open top pail was sat before them, each in turn would plunge its muzzle in, loudly sucking ‘til it had had enough, then would nod its enormous head and make the droplets fly.

Once, on his way home from town Dad stopped in for a drink and found two young men with their boots off and their feet in the cool water of the spring. In rather threatening tones they made it clear that Dad should be on his way… ’or else’. That didn’t go down too well and when Mom asked what he was going to do with the baseball bat he just muttered about feet in the spring. We watch from the road as the men came clambering up the bank, hopping along trying to get their boots on and heading for town. Dad also scored three bottles of cold beer from that little action.

 Full pails always sat on the cupboard top in our kitchen, a dipper close at hand should you need a drink. It was just something I accepted when I was little, but as I grew older the chore of hauling those full pails up that hill from the spring wasn’t such a simple task. I’m sure I never got to the top with a full pail. In the winter come laundry day there were no barrels along the back eave of the house. Come winter, all the water had to come from the spring which never froze. It just bubbled up as if it were not 40 below.

Sometimes we would find what we called a ‘hair-snake’; a long, thin creature swimming in the glass of water you had just dipped from the pail on the counter. Some people said that if you put a horse hair in water it would become a snake like the ones we found. I tried it; the hair in a jar of water, but all I ever got was a wet horse hair.  Nothing that ever swam around. Often, I’m sure I never saw the thing in the glass!

There were lots of springs where people could stop for water, most with the ubiquitous drinking utensil close at hand. On the road to Tasso Dam there was one where early campers and cottagers would fill containers with its’ cold, fresh water. Any passers-by would stop, rinse the cup, and drink their fill.

On the side of Brunel Road about five miles from town, there was a spring where countless people, both cottager and local, have stopped and filled containers with cold, clear water. Today, that water is bottled and sold commercially, off limits to the parched throat of a passer-by.

When, as a teenager, I worked summers for Ontario Hydro, we would leave the yard with our big ‘Igloo’ coolers and head down to the train station and along the track to where a pipe poured water from a spring. We would fill our containers and the water from there would wash the heat from our throats. And from the throats of other crews on those hot summer days. 

There are still other springs about, but not many people would stop now and drink from a pool of water that bubbled from the earth; nor would they deign to drink from an enamel cup that rested on a nearby rock or hung from a tree branch. Some springs were declared contaminated and a few sealed over. The fear being I suppose that there could be the possibility of a court action should someone claim to have been harmed by water from a certain spring on private property.

They prefer to buy and drink water from a plastic container, bottled by a multi-national corporation that owns the rights to the wells and springs from which we used to drink for free. People will buy water sourced from the clear mountain springs of down-town Toronto, which is likely from a tap somewhere in the city. If so, it is likely from a public water system. How far down the road will it be before that water may have already been through a few sets of kidneys before people get to drink it.

The spring that I knew is now enclosed in a small block building that contains a pressure tank and water pump. That system now supplies two households at the top of the hill. It provides them with water, but still spills enough out onto the ground to keep the area cool and damp. You could still get a drink there if you wanted, though I’m sure you would need to have your own cup.

I always loved peering deep into that pool, to see the sand and fine gravel skitter and dance and hoped that the gnome in the pool would show itself to me again. Once it had done so as I was watching; a swirl of gravel and its face was shimmering up at me. The eyes grew wide as my own as the silt drifted clear of the image and the mouth formed a soft oh! Aghast I suppose at having been seen. My features must have appeared much the same. Surprised at having seen it. The cheeks then swelled and puffed as it breathed more water into the pool. 

“Come on Allen. I don’t want you coming up the hill by yourself. A car might come along.” Dad was already up on the roadway.

I had only looked away for an instant but when I turned back it was gone. I never told anyone it was there.  I’m sure that was best because children just accept these things as being, whereas adults always seem to have to ‘deal with things. And a gnome living under the spring would have had to be dealt with. I can’t recall ever seeing it again but I know it was there. Maybe it still is.