Peter Rabbit's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

The new rows changed everything. A dozen families now weeded and watched Peter's patch, and the crop had doubled in size. But the morning after, Peter walked the far edge and found the trouble. His single trickle of water, the one thin stream that fed his old rows, could not reach the new ones. The soil there was already cracking. If he did nothing, half his carrots would wither before winter. Peter dug a shallow channel with his paws, hoping the water would run downhill to the dry rows. It soaked into the dirt after three feet and stopped. He tried carrying water in a cracked pot, back and forth from the trickle. By midday his arms shook and only one row was damp. A dozen more waited, drying in the sun. Carrying water by paw would never save the crop. He needed better help. Peter went to the shop with the gingerbread trim, where he owed his basket. Ginger and Pickles kept it stocked with seeds and tools. He hoped they had something for water. Ginger met him at the door in his green coat, wiping his paws. He listened, then shook his head. "We sell seed, not rivers," he said. "But my father piped water once. He hollowed reeds and joined them end to end. Ran a whole line from a high spring down to a low field." He tapped the counter. "You've got the bakehouse spring above your patch, haven't you?" Peter had. Behind the bakery with the brick oven ran a strong spring, higher than his rows. He thanked Ginger and hurried off. He cut armfuls of hollow reeds from the pond edge. Then he called the warren families together and showed them the plan. Each rabbit fit one reed inside the next, sealing the joints with mud, building a long pipe from the high spring down to the dry rows. They worked until dusk. The line sagged twice and had to be propped with stones. When the last joint sealed, Peter climbed to the spring behind the bakehouse and pulled the plug of moss. Water rushed into the reeds. He ran down the slope beside it, faster than the flow. At the dry rows, water spilled from the pipe's mouth and darkened the cracked soil. The rabbits cheered. Every row now drank. Peter's whole patch, old and new, had water at last. But the spring above the bakehouse was not his alone. As the water ran to his rows, Peter saw the stream that fed the oven's mill wheel had slowed to a dribble. The baker would find her wheel stopped by morning. Peter had watered his carrots by draining the spring that ran the bakehouse. He had solved his drought and stolen another's water in the same afternoon.