The first morning I began digging, I understood why my father had never allowed anyone to rush him.<\/p>\n
I had spent the night imagining how quickly I might reach the well.<\/p>\n
A little progress each day.<\/p>\n
Several paces in a week.<\/p>\n
Forty paces before the snow.<\/p>\n
It sounded manageable while I was sitting at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
Then I began removing the earth.<\/p>\n
The work was far slower than I had expected.<\/p>\n
I used a short shovel because there was not enough room for the long one.<\/p>\n
I worked on my knees.<\/p>\n
At first, the opening in the floor was barely large enough for me to move comfortably.<\/p>\n
I had to take out soil, fill a bucket, and lift it away before I could dig again.<\/p>\n
Every bucket felt heavier than the last.<\/p>\n
By midday, my back ached.<\/p>\n
My shoulders burned.<\/p>\n
I had made only a small space beneath the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I looked at the distance I had left.<\/p>\n
Forty paces.<\/p>\n
I almost could not believe what I had started.<\/p>\n
But I had already opened the floor.<\/p>\n
The earth was there.<\/p>\n
And I knew what would happen if I stopped before giving the plan a real chance.<\/p>\n
I would spend another winter watching that well through the window.<\/p>\n
I would still have to open the door whenever I needed water.<\/p>\n
I would still remember my father.<\/p>\n
So I kept working.<\/p>\n
I set up a pulley to help lift the buckets of soil.<\/p>\n
The rope ran through my hands until the skin became sore.<\/p>\n
I carried the dirt behind the house and emptied it there.<\/p>\n
Then I went inside.<\/p>\n
Down into the opening.<\/p>\n
Another shovel.<\/p>\n
Another bucket.<\/p>\n
Another trip.<\/p>\n
There was no clever way to avoid the work.<\/p>\n
My father had often said that the most important parts of digging were usually the parts nobody admired.<\/p>\n
People noticed water when it came.<\/p>\n
They noticed a finished stone wall.<\/p>\n
They did not notice every careful measurement, every support, every moment spent checking ground that looked perfectly safe.<\/p>\n
I understood him better now.<\/p>\n
Each time I advanced, I had to think about the roof above my head.<\/p>\n
I could not simply remove earth and hope it would remain in place.<\/p>\n
The wooden supports had to be fitted properly.<\/p>\n
I measured.<\/p>\n
I cut.<\/p>\n
I checked the contact between timber and soil.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I discovered a mistake before setting the frame.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I had to remove something I had already placed.<\/p>\n
That was frustrating.<\/p>\n
But I remembered my father telling me that correcting a small error above ground was easier than surviving it below.<\/p>\n
I tried not to hurry.<\/p>\n
The first few days settled into a routine.<\/p>\n
I woke early.<\/p>\n
I ate what I could spare.<\/p>\n
I checked the tools.<\/p>\n
Then I went beneath the floor.<\/p>\n
Most of the day passed in the tunnel.<\/p>\n
When I came out, there was still work waiting inside the house.<\/p>\n
The kitchen needed cleaning.<\/p>\n
The fire needed tending.<\/p>\n
The water still had to be fetched from outside.<\/p>\n
That last task was the cruelest reminder.<\/p>\n
I was digging a passage so I would not have to make those forty paces.<\/p>\n
But until I finished, I had to walk them anyway.<\/p>\n
Some evenings, I could barely lift the buckets.<\/p>\n
I stood beside the well and looked down into the darkness.<\/p>\n
I wondered what my father would say if he saw me.<\/p>\n
Would he be proud?<\/p>\n
Would he tell me I had chosen a dangerous answer to a simple problem?<\/p>\n
I did not know.<\/p>\n
I knew he would examine the supports before saying anything.<\/p>\n
That thought made me smile once.<\/p>\n
Only once.<\/p>\n
Then I carried the water home.<\/p>\n
The tunnel became longer.<\/p>\n
A little at a time, the kitchen opening led farther beneath the yard.<\/p>\n
I marked my progress carefully.<\/p>\n
I needed to know where I was going.<\/p>\n
I could not see the well from underground.<\/p>\n
I had to trust my measurements.<\/p>\n
At twelve paces, something changed.<\/p>\n
I was kneeling ahead of the last support when I noticed the lantern.<\/p>\n
The flame had grown smaller.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought the lantern needed attention.<\/p>\n
I checked it.<\/p>\n
The flame still burned weakly.<\/p>\n
Then I realized I was breathing harder than the work required.<\/p>\n
My head felt strange.<\/p>\n
I stopped digging.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I considered finishing the bucket of soil in front of me.<\/p>\n
That thought still troubles me.<\/p>\n
I was tired of losing time.<\/p>\n
I wanted to reach the well.<\/p>\n
I wanted to prove that I could do what I had promised myself.<\/p>\n
But I remembered something my father had taught me.<\/p>\n
A tunnel could become dangerous even when its walls were solid.<\/p>\n
Air mattered as much as timber.<\/p>\n
He had warned me about places where a flame struggled to burn.<\/p>\n
I looked at the lantern again.<\/p>\n
Then I left the bucket where it was.<\/p>\n
I crawled toward the kitchen.<\/p>\n
The passage seemed longer on the way back.<\/p>\n
My arms felt heavy.<\/p>\n
I kept moving until I reached the opening in the floor.<\/p>\n
When I climbed out, I sat beside it and tried to breathe normally.<\/p>\n
Fresh air came through the room.<\/p>\n
Slowly, the dizziness eased.<\/p>\n
I knew what had happened.<\/p>\n
The tunnel was not receiving enough air.<\/p>\n
If I had ignored the lantern, I might not have made it back.<\/p>\n
I stayed on the floor for a long time.<\/p>\n
I thought about my father.<\/p>\n
He had known this danger.<\/p>\n
He had warned me.<\/p>\n
And still I had nearly convinced myself that finishing one more bucket mattered more than getting out safely.<\/p>\n
That frightened me.<\/p>\n
Not the tunnel itself.<\/p>\n
My own impatience.<\/p>\n
I had been trying to do the work carefully.<\/p>\n
But I had also been counting the days.<\/p>\n
Watching the weather.<\/p>\n
Thinking about winter.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to treat every delay as something I could not afford.<\/p>\n
That was a mistake.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I did not continue digging toward the well.<\/p>\n
I worked on ventilation instead.<\/p>\n
I made a narrow opening that would allow fresh air to reach the passage.<\/p>\n
It was slow work.<\/p>\n
It did not bring me closer to the well.<\/p>\n
At least, that was how I thought about it at first.<\/p>\n
But I knew I could not safely continue without it.<\/p>\n
When I returned underground, I watched the lantern carefully.<\/p>\n
The flame stood stronger.<\/p>\n
I could breathe without the same heaviness in my chest.<\/p>\n
Only then did I pick up the shovel again.<\/p>\n
I had learned my first hard lesson alone.<\/p>\n
The tunnel would not forgive me because I was young.<\/p>\n
It would not forgive me because my father had died.<\/p>\n
It would not forgive me because winter was coming.<\/p>\n
If I wanted to finish, I had to work according to what the earth allowed.<\/p>\n
Not according to what I wished.<\/p>\n
Outside, the pile of soil behind our house kept growing.<\/p>\n
I had been so busy working that I barely noticed how large it had become.<\/p>\n
Anyone walking uphill could see it.<\/p>\n
People began asking questions.<\/p>\n
At first, I gave short answers.<\/p>\n
I said I was working beneath the kitchen.<\/p>\n
That usually produced a puzzled look.<\/p>\n
Then someone asked what I hoped to accomplish.<\/p>\n
I explained that I intended to reach the well underground.<\/p>\n
The person stared at me.<\/p>\n
I could almost see the question forming.<\/p>\n
Why would anyone do that?<\/p>\n
I told them the reason.<\/p>\n
During a winter storm, I would be able to reach the water without going outside.<\/p>\n
I had thought the explanation was simple.<\/p>\n
It seemed simple to me.<\/p>\n
But I soon discovered that explaining a plan was not the same as making people believe in it.<\/p>\n
One day, when I went to the village store, the conversation changed as soon as I entered.<\/p>\n
People looked at my clothes.<\/p>\n
There was dirt on my sleeves.<\/p>\n
My hands were rough.<\/p>\n
I had been working since sunrise.<\/p>\n
Someone asked whether I was still digging beneath the house.<\/p>\n
I said yes.<\/p>\n
He asked whether I expected to walk all the way to the well like an animal in a burrow.<\/p>\n
A few people laughed.<\/p>\n
I tried to explain the supports.<\/p>\n
I mentioned the opening I was making.<\/p>\n
I said the water would remain accessible when snow covered the yard.<\/p>\n
But the laughter continued.<\/p>\n
I stopped explaining.<\/p>\n
I bought what I needed and left.<\/p>\n
A few days later, children began making digging movements with their hands when I passed.<\/p>\n
Some scratched at the air.<\/p>\n
Others laughed and called me a mole.<\/p>\n
I tried to ignore them.<\/p>\n
They were children.<\/p>\n
They repeated what they heard.<\/p>\n
But I knew where the name had come from.<\/p>\n
Men at the tavern had been discussing my tunnel.<\/p>\n
Some thought it would collapse before winter.<\/p>\n
Others believed I would give up once the work became too difficult.<\/p>\n
I learned that people were even making wagers about it.<\/p>\n
Whether the tunnel would fail.<\/p>\n
Whether I would be hurt.<\/p>\n
Whether I would finally abandon the whole idea.<\/p>\n
I remember standing outside the store after hearing that.<\/p>\n
I wanted to go back inside.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask whether my father's death had been amusing to them, too.<\/p>\n
But I knew most of them would deny that was what they meant.<\/p>\n
They would say they were only being practical.<\/p>\n
They would say they were concerned.<\/p>\n
Perhaps some were.<\/p>\n
But none of those arguments helped move a single bucket of soil.<\/p>\n
Nobody who laughed at my work had crawled through the tunnel to inspect it.<\/p>\n
Nobody had checked the supports.<\/p>\n
They knew only that a girl was digging underground.<\/p>\n
That was enough for them.<\/p>\n
Don Baltazar did not join the laughter.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought that meant he might understand.<\/p>\n
I was wrong.<\/p>\n
He told people I was behaving recklessly.<\/p>\n
He said I was too young to understand what I was risking.<\/p>\n
He spoke about the danger of the house collapsing.<\/p>\n
He suggested that someone should intervene before I caused a disaster.<\/p>\n
I knew what that meant.<\/p>\n
He wanted the land.<\/p>\n
And every day I continued digging made it clearer that I was not preparing to leave.<\/p>\n
I began to understand why he watched my work so closely.<\/p>\n
He had offered to buy the property because he believed I could not keep it.<\/p>\n
Now I was attempting something that might allow me to remain there through the winter.<\/p>\n
If I succeeded, his prediction would be wrong.<\/p>\n
If I failed, he could claim he had warned everyone.<\/p>\n
Either way, he made sure people heard his opinion.<\/p>\n
I could do very little about that.<\/p>\n
I had tools to mend.<\/p>\n
Timber to measure.<\/p>\n
Earth to move.<\/p>\n
And winter approaching.<\/p>\n
Still, the words followed me home.<\/p>\n
I heard them when I struggled to pull another bucket through the opening.<\/p>\n
I heard them when my hands split.<\/p>\n
I heard them when I lay awake wondering whether I had advanced far enough.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I was foolish.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the tunnel was too ambitious for one person.<\/p>\n
Perhaps my father would have chosen another answer.<\/p>\n
I could not be certain.<\/p>\n
But every morning, I looked toward the fence.<\/p>\n
The place where I found him was still there.<\/p>\n
I could remember his position exactly.<\/p>\n
Eleven paces from the door.<\/p>\n
That memory did not tell me whether my tunnel would succeed.<\/p>\n
It told me why I had begun.<\/p>\n
One evening, after a particularly difficult day, I sat beside the opening in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
My clothes were dirty.<\/p>\n
The lantern was nearly spent.<\/p>\n
The shovel rested against the wall.<\/p>\n
I was too tired to carry the last bucket outside.<\/p>\n
I looked at the passage beneath me.<\/p>\n
It was dark.<\/p>\n
Narrow.<\/p>\n
Unfinished.<\/p>\n
No one in the village would have found much to admire.<\/p>\n
But it existed.<\/p>\n
Twelve paces had already taught me more than I expected.<\/p>\n
I knew where the ground held firm.<\/p>\n
I knew how the air changed underground.<\/p>\n
I knew that I had to keep measuring and supporting each new section.<\/p>\n
The people laughing outside did not know any of those things.<\/p>\n
They could see only the mound of earth.<\/p>\n
They had no idea how much care was hidden beneath it.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I realized I had been wasting strength trying to imagine what they thought of me.<\/p>\n
Their opinions would not strengthen the timber.<\/p>\n
Their laughter would not move the shovel.<\/p>\n
I had to decide whether I trusted the lessons my father had given me.<\/p>\n
I looked at the tools beside the kitchen opening.<\/p>\n
Then I set the bucket where I could reach it in the morning.<\/p>\n
I was still afraid of failing.<\/p>\n
But I was no longer willing to let the villagers decide what failure meant before I had finished trying.<\/p>\n
The first morning I began digging, I understood why my father had never allowed anyone to rush him. I had spent the night imagining how quickly I might reach the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-sory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12079,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12059\/revisions\/12079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}