FF-8 Water Is Where You Find It Text

Water is Where You Find It

by Hallie Stilwell, as told to Virginia Madison

     Several years ago at the end of a five-year drought, things were in bad
shape on the jag ranch. We were hardly able to drag along, and we were
praying for rain and helping our prayers along with well- digging rigs which
were costing us a fortune. All our water tanks were dry, and our last well was
only pumping a trickle.

     The cattle came to the watering holes to drink, but they found only mud.
We took our dirty clothes forty-six miles to town to have them washed. Things
were so desperate that we wiped off our dinner plates and set them out in the
sun to sterilize. The water needed to wash dishes might save a cow.

     I thought I was a pretty brave woman, but even I began to give up hope.
Then I remembered that a water dowser had once told me there was water
on our ranch. He had held a water witch in both hands and had walked slowly
around with it. He said the forked willow branch would dip sharply over a
place where there was underground water. The dowser had told me that
there was water under the big sand pile behind our house. I believed him,
but nobody else did.

     I asked my son. Guy, if he remembered the place. He showed me the
rock that marked the spot.

     Guy didn't share my feelings about water dowsers. He said, "That man
"witched* many a dry hole around here. Why, our neighbor spent twelve
thousand dollars this year drilling wells where the dowser said there was
water. He never found a drop!"

     We are located northeast of Big Bend National Park on the border
between Texas and Mexico. Almost every day we saw several Mexicans,
who had swum the Rio Grande River and entered the United States illegally.
I told Guy to hire the next "wet" Mexicans who came by and have them
dig fifty feet. If they didn't hit water, we wouldn't lose much money; if they
did, it would save us.

     The next day, two Mexicans came by and I put them to work digging
my well. The sand proved too loose to dig in. So we got a tractor and
scoop, the kind used for road work, to move the sand. Guy operated the
tractor. A Mexican was to operate the scoop, but he was too
inexperienced to handle it. After half a day, the Mexican said he was
sick and left.

     So I drove the tractor, and Guy operated the scoop. It was like
moving a mountain with a thimble.

     After four days of the hardest labor I've ever done, we hit hard ground.
Another Mexican drifted by. We hired him and started the digging.

     When neighbors learned I was digging for water, they shook their heads and
muttered, "Well, the drought finally ruined old Hallie!"

     I can smile now as I look back on the problems we met, but then they
were serious. We made the hole six feet square when four feet would have
been plenty. Besides, one of us had to be on the lookout for Mexican officers
looking for "wet" Mexicans. Working down in that hole, the Mexicans couldn't
even run to hide.

     One morning two officers caught us. I tried to talk them out of taking the
Mexicans back across the river. But they insisted that the law had to be
obeyed, so the well digging stopped. I asked the officers not to take the
Mexicans across too far up the river. "It will take them too long to get back."
I knew they'd be back. I paid well, and in Mexico they couldn't find any jobs.
In four days they were back and the digging continued.

     After they had gone down about twenty feet, they hit | solid rock. I was
desperate! It was costing me plenty of money every day. And out by the
other dried-up well, some of the cattle just lay down and died in the dust.

     I sent Guy to town to get some dynamite. He came back to report that
there wasn't a stick of dynamite in town. There wasn't even any at the
graveyard where they had to blast through solid rock every time they dug a
grave. So there was nothing left to do but dig. Fortunately, the rock layer
wasn't too thick.  After two weeks, the Mexicans finally got through it. There
still was no sign of water!

     We hauled water to keep some of the cattle alive, and kept digging. On
the sixtieth Guy burst out, "Mama, I've a good mind to put you and that
water witch in a sack and run you out of the country." I couldn't even laugh.

     On the sixty-fourth day, the ground on the bottom of the well began to
get wet. The following day, water began to seep in. We lined the walls with
rocks and put a pump over the well. Finally, I had all the water I needed!

     I even piped water two miles to my neighbor who had failed to get water
in any of the wells he had drilled. I figured he its couldn't blame the dowser
for his unsuccessful wells; he just hadn't drilled deep enough.

     After that. Guy changed his thinking about water dowsers. He began to
experiment with a forked willow branch. He has witched two good wells now,
and is a firm believer in water dowsers. I, who believed in them all along,
can't even get a tug from a water witch. As long as there are water dowsers,
I never again expect to clean my dishes in the sun so every drop of water
can be saved for the cattle.