title: The Watering of Stones
author: Whalen Elmore
description: An achingly and artfully rendered book about hard lives, many miseries and all-too-rare lambent moments. -- <i>KirKus Discoveries</i>
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  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  # The Canterbury Pilgrims
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Nathaniel Hawthorne
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  The summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over a
  
  
  broad extent of uneven country. Some of its brightest rays were flung
  
  
  into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the writer
  
  
  has, up the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failed to quench
  
  
  his thirst. The work of neat hands and considerate art was visible
  
  
  about this blessed fountain. An open cistern, hewn and hollowed out
  
  
  of solid stone, was placed above the waters, which filled it to the
  
  
  brim, but, by some invisible outlet, were conveyed away without
  
  
  dripping down its sides. Though the basin had not room for another
  
  
  drop, and the continual gush of water made a tremor on the surface,
  
  
  there was a secret charm that forbade it to overflow. I remember, that
  
  
  when I had slaked my summer thirst, and sat panting 