Clear Cold Water

The temperature was hot – a Midwest summer.  I had spent the morning riding with my father in his pickup truck, checking irrigation ditches and the growing crops. We stopped at the pump house where clear water gushed from the great aquifer that lay beneath the panhandle of Nebraska. An old tin cup hung from a rusty nail and I watched as he took it and filled it with the rushing water from the pipe. Then it was my turn. I took it and filled it, holding tight as the blast of water pushed the tin away. The water was cold and sweet. I drank it quickly, filled it again with the water that quenched our crops. Hemingford, Nebraska