OLD TIMERS’
ODD DISCOVERY
It was on one of these trips that we noticed
an assortment of rocks arranged in a peculiar pattern almost hidden by the
brush in and around it. The stones were arranged in the form of a cross with an
oval border around it. It was obvious that it had been there many years since
the rocks forming the border were half buried and the heavy brush had grown up
around it. The arrangement was about five feet in length and a foot in width. We wondered about it for a few minutes and we
were trying to decide if we should do anything about it. It might have been an
artistic arrangement some kids made many years ago just for something to do. We
had been guilty of doing things similar to that with no real meaning attached
to the project. On the other hand, someone might have buried something valuable
there. We thought about that for a little while. “If someone were burying a treasure I don’t
think he would have marked it so prominently.” This was We could not determine if the soil had been
disturbed but it was easy to dig. We continued to move dirt, expecting to find
something any minute. We got a bit of encouragement when, at a depth of about
three feet, we found a piece of very old looking wood about a foot long and
about two inches in diameter. By its apparent age and condition we decided that
it was not a recent tree root and must have been there a long time. We
continued to dig with a renewed vigor. After digging about another foot we were
again excited by finding three or four long pieces of timber. Just below the
wood our shovel scraped on a long metal object. “What do you think it is?” I asked. “It seems
to be a metal object of some kind.” I lifted the old shriveled boards with the
pick and we pulled them out of the hole. The object was lying on top of another
three boards. Apparently it had been in a box when it was buried. With a little
more prying and shoveling we were able to see what we had found. It was composed of rusted and dented metal
and was about three and a half feet long. The narrow pipe-like end that we had
first discovered increased in size toward the other end and appeared to have a
handle of some sort attached to the side. We carefully pulled it out of the
hole and scraped the dirt off so we could carefully inspect it . “It looks like an old well pump.” “Why would someone bury that?” I asked. “Do
you reckon it’s got something valuable inside?”
There was nothing valuable inside the old pump and all we found in the
hole after a close inspection were a few more scraps of old wood. I had a quick answer to his question. “Just
to April fool people like us who just had to dig it up to see what it was!” |