Village Idiots by Don Wallace: vignette "Oh, Well" -- the story of our contested source du village

You wouldn’t guess it to look at it, but that’s a highly contested piece of village real estate there, under the hat of green leaves. It’s our well. Well, it was our well. Hell, it’s still our well, but we don’t want to fight about it, so we let the neighbor across the lane tell people it’s his well. But we and he and the village know full well whose well it is. Ours. Before us, Jeannie’s. And as nobody would’ve ever dared to claim Jeannie’s well as theirs, we’ll rest our case here. Except to add: it’s beautiful to stare down, a tunnel of dripping moss and rock edges, with darkness where the water should be, darkness and a faint plop-plop-plop.

—Village Idiots