THE THUMPER
The man who had been busy thumping back the stones and soil in the hole where they have been laying our new water main paused and said, 'You'll be a bit fed up with us lot, eh?' I said, as politely as I could, that I was not, and added that they had all worked very hard at the job. 'Oh, it's just another job,' he said, giving the road a thump with the thumper, an implement that had an engine tucked away in it somewhere and produced these thumping spasms by releasing exhaust gas. The thumps stopped again. 'Don't you ever worry about that thing coming down on your foot?' I asked, for it seemed a great risk. 'Not often.' he said with a grin and then, seeing his fore- man coming, thumped off at a good speed. At midday we found ourselves wondering what had happened. I could hear a cow lowing and a hushing sound that was the breeze in the trees across the road. It seemed very unnatural, this peace at the end of ten days of pneumatic drills, rumbling compressors and, of course,
the thumper. We had evidently started to live with the thing. The thumper, I fancy, had gone on, like a monster, thumping its way to the back of beyond with the man at the handle astonishing everyone, as he had me, with the artistry with which he avoided flattening out his own feet.
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