Our Spring by Robert Samuel Lancaster

" Covered by a great block of white flint, the spring had been there since ice had rent the land. It was shaped like a mitten, and a sweet stream of water ran from the trunk. In winter, it was too warm to freeze; in summer, too cool to believe. 

It’s cooling grace sprang from a high hill on which Popular and virgin White Oak gave shade. For eons it was unknown to man, know only water sprites that haunt such places. Long ages passed before even a deer dropped an antlered head to drink. The water was not like all water; more lipid, damper, showing all the qualities of the original element. Its name was life and magic. 

This hidden, haunted place was at last discovered by man. No longer did it flow free as nature permitted. Now it began to obey, to be channeled, to be led. Some one of my ancestors acquired the land. He built a log house nearby because of the spring. For the spring too, he built a log house, small and neat. The branch was channeled between two cucumber tree logs. Space was provided in the spring house for churning butter. A little dairy house, it was filled with crocks of cream and buttermilk, choice vegetables and other things needing to keep cool. 

Much activity centered around the spring house; the milking gap was nearby. Wash pots for washing clothes of farming people lay within comfortable distance. A path lined with Walnut Trees line the path to the spring from the house. The distance was about 100 yards. Uphill from the spring, water was carried for a hundred years by hand. Ten thousand gallons I alone carried to the house! All water for a myriad of household uses came from that free, stone covered spring. I grew up and first became a man by experiencing my years by that spring. 

Coming to the spring at night, the hair on the back of my neck stood erect, feeling the hot breath of a panther breathing nearby. No place was lonelier at night; the great trees, the burble of the creek flowing nearby, the sound of an owl’s wing, muffled, but threatening. A boy became a man by that spring."

In rummaging through my Uncle Red's writings, I occasionally come upon a reflection. They are usually short, as the one above. His notebooks are filled with hardly legible lecture notes on Russia, the mid East, Cuba, and other world  issues and problems of the late 50's and 60's. Hard to read and barely remembered by my teenaged self of the 60's, making the task harder now.

Uncle Red, or Robert Samuel Lancaster, taught Jurisprudence Prudence at Baghdad University, University of Tokyo and Political Science at the University of the South at Sewanee TN.

He grew up on a 70 acre farm nestled in the hills around Floyd Virginia.

This is my latest find; nestled on a page that included his synopsis of Russia and the Cuban missile crisis.