(A love story)
M.Farook
Jack was a fifteen year old boy who lived with his mother in a small house at the foot of a hill. They were poor. Jack’s father had been killed by a wolf while out hunting alone. Jack and his mother scraped through a living by selling fresh milk from the only cow they had owned. Every day, first thing in the morning he would take the cow for grazing. Then he would go to the market to sell the milk. After he returned home, he would go to fetch water for drinking and washing, from a well on top of the hill which was located about a half mile from his house. The hill itself was about nine hundred feet high. A narrow, path meandered through bushes and across rocky terrain, from his house to the top of the hill. It was the only hill for miles around. Every day he would climb up the hill with a pail, fill it with water and come down with it. It was hard work. But he enjoyed fetching water. This was because it provided him the chance to meet Jill who also went to the same well to fetch water for her house.
Jill was a thirteen year old girl. She lived in the same village as Jack, at the foot of the hill with her father. Her mother had died recently and Jill was feeling very sad. Her father worked at a factory in a nearby town and he would return home very late. Jill was now responsible for all the house work including fetching water from the well on top of the hill. Every day she would meet Jack near the well. Jill had found him very attractive and she had a feeling that Jack also liked her.
One day when Jack was about to come down the hill with a pail of water, Jill offered to help him. “We will both hold the handle and go down together,” she said.
“Where is your pail? Are you not taking water to your house today?” asked Jack.
“I have already taken water to my house. I came to ask you whether you could spare some firewood for tonight. I have run out of the firewood dad had cut during the weekend. By the time he comes home tonight it will be quite late.”
“Yes. I have plenty of firewood. I will be happy to provide you with the firewood you need.”
Jack and Jill were coming down the hill with the pail of water when suddenly Jack tripped on a stone along the path. He fell down. As he fell down Jill also fell down with him. They both rolled down the hill thoroughly wet. At last when they stopped tumbling and got up they found that they were both fairly bruised. And Jack’s head was also broken. They got up and made their way to Jack’s house. Seeing how badly Jack’s head had been cut, his mother put brown paper soaked in vinegar. This was a very effective traditional medicine for such injuries. She also cleaned Jill’s bruises and applied some healing oil. As she rubbed the oil, Jack’s mother said, “You two must be very careful coming down that path. It is extremely dangerous with its sharp turns. You are lucky to have escaped lightly. Now go home and rest.” Jill then went home.
After a few days when Jill accompanied by her father visited Jack, she found him fully recovered. But Jack and his mother had packed and were preparing to leave the house. When Jill inquired as to where they were going, his mother had replied, “When Jack could not work, we had to sell our cow. Now we have no livelihood here. So we are moving to town to seek employment.”
*****
Jack’s mother found work as a housemaid in a house which belonged to the owner of a large factory. The factory owner had no children. Soon he became very fond of Jack. One day, after a few years when he died, Jack was named in his will as the sole beneficiary of his estate.
After Jack took over as the new owner of the factory, he had a meeting with the senior staff. Jack recognized Jill’s father among the staff. After the meeting was over, Jack met Jill’s father and inquired about her. He said that she was in good health. But that in spite of the fact that many young men had proposed to her, she had not agreed to marriage.
Not long afterwards, Jack went to his former village and went up the hill that he had climbed every day, during his childhood. When he went up the hill, he found that Jill had just filled her pail with water and was about to come down. The moment they saw each other, they ran into each other and hugged as though they had known that this was the moment that they had been waiting all their lives. Then Jack and Jill came together down the hill holding the pail of water. This time they did not fall.
Soon their engagement was announced and after about a month they got married. All the people of the village were invited to the wedding. At the wedding reception, Jack said that he always had wondered why a well had been built on top of a hill and that he was going to invest in digging a well at the bottom of the hill so that the villagers did not have to climb up a hill to fetch water. But some people said whoever had built the well on top of the hill was responsible for bringing Jack and Jill together. Even after they had married very often they would go up the hill and enjoy time together near the well.
After living to a ripe old age, when Jack and Jill died their children had the following epitaph on their tombstone:-
“Jack and Jill, went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown. And Jill came tumbling after.”
The End.
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