By Gretchen Deter

Special to the Citizen

It was hot outside, really hot!! The cool morning comfort disappeared and the afternoon temperatures soared, parching the rain starved pastures now brown and crisp from weeks of hot, dry weather. The prairie found no relief from the heat and not even a breath of a breeze brought comfort to whatever was still trying to survive. The sunflowers sagged heavily with their weighty seeds, the soap weed spiked like stiff spindles from the cracked earth, and the brown grasses snapped with each step.

A farmer, wiping the beads from his brow, worriedly looked over the acres of homesteaded land searching for a cloud from the west that might possibly offer an afternoon shower bringing life back to his wilting crops. He worried that there would be no hay for the winter, no crops to sell, and no garden to harvest for his family.

As he looked past his barn, where his milk cows and plow mules searched for an inch of shade, he smiled softly as he saw a little green patch of grass and a few spriggly cottonwood trees. Nestled among the cottonwoods, almost obscure to the eye, was a very small building. This was the farmer and his family’s hidden treasure. He loved to see this little oasis that looked so out of place in the dry lands that surrounded it.

The farmer had moved his family from Pennsylvania several years earlier looking for the promise of new, free, and open farmland. One thing the farmer remembered and was able to adapt to his new homestead had something to do with the hidden green patch of grass surrounded by the few spriggly cottonwoods. This was the family’s special Garden of Eden. This spot ignored the heat and the drought that plagued the rest of the prairie and gave the family so much joy.

Beneath the little grassy oasis was a cold, clear-water spring seeping up from the rocky layers below the surface of the earth. The crystal clear pool gently gurgled and swirled with water so fresh and cold that the heat of the day had little effect on it. Even as the rivers withered in the late summer, this small spring kept replenishing itself. It didn’t dry up under the summer’s heat nor did it freeze during the winter’s arctic chill. It was as if God had given this farmer a gift, a small reward, for his efforts to make something good out of such an inhospitable place.

Back in Pennsylvania the farmer knew about fresh water springs. Water was not such a scarcity back east but the clear, cold springs were still special to anyone lucky enough to have one on their property. In Pennsylvania, the farmer had learned that there was an extra bonus to having a spring such as his nearby clear cool pool. With a constant supply of cold, fresh water, special opportunities abounded. This farmer’s spring offered a plentiful supply of fresh drinking for the family and a perfect swimming hole for the children. The farmer also knew that the cold water could be used for something else. The Pennsylvania farmer had learned that if he were to build a little house over the spring, he would have a place with a constant cool temperature regardless of the seasons. This little place was known as a “spring house”.

This farmer’s spring house was a tiny, floorless, one-room building constructed right over the water and under the shady branches of the cottonwoods. It was about 4’ high and had only one door. Each end of the spring house had a hole in the wall so the water could move in and out of the building. Inside the spring house the summer temperatures were about 30 degrees cooler than outside. The farmer built a trough-like shelf in the middle of the building partly submerged in the water. He could place bottles of milk in the trough to stay cold and fresh without floating away. He also built shelves along the sides of the spring house to store preserved foods such as vegetables, fruits, jams and jellies. There were crocks of butter, cheeses, eggs, and about anything the family needed to keep cool and fresh.

The worried farmer, standing in the summer afternoon heat, wiped his brow once again and took a second glance at the patch of green near his primitive barn. Yes, he worried about his brown fields and his wilting garden but this was nothing new to him. He had survived the harsh elements of the prairie and it tested his patience but he knew they would not defeat him. He had built his home, brought his family to his new homestead and was making a life for himself. He proudly looked at all he had accomplished and then, with a little grin, he looked back at the tiny green grassy place with the spriggly cottonwood trees next to his barn. This was his special little place, a cool and quiet spring. There was his little spring house seemingly floating on the pond. He had to admit that it was the “coolest” little house on the prairie.