Of course, as yet, she could not draw a bucketful, for the water hardly came above the stones; but he would soon get out as many as would make it deep enough--only, if it was all Sandy could do to get out the big ones, and that with his help too, how was he to manage it alone?
There was the rub! I must go back a little to explain how he came to think of a plan.
After Hector and he had gone as far in Dr Dick's astronomy as they could understand, they found they were getting themselves into what seemed quite a jungle of planets, and suns, and comets, and constellations.
"It seems to me," said the shoemaker, "that to understand anything you must understand everything." So they laid the book aside for the present; and Hector, searching about for another with which to fill up the remainder of the afternoon, came upon one in which the mechanical powers were treated after a simple fashion.
Of this book Willie had now read a good deal.

I cannot say that he had yet come to understand the mechanical power so thoroughly as to see that the lever and the wheel-and-axle are the same in kind, or that the screw, the inclined plane, and the wedge are the same power in different shapes; but he did understand that while a single pulley gives you no advantage except by enabling you to apply your strength in the most effective manner, a second pulley takes half the weight off you.

Hence, with the difficulty in which he now found himself, came at once the thought of a block with a pulley in it, which he had seen lying about in the carpenter's shop.

He remembered also that there was a great iron staple or _eye_ in the vault just over the well; and if he could only get hold of a second pulley, the thing was as good as done--the well as good as cleared out to whatever depth he could reach below the water.
As soon as school was over, he ran to Mr Spelman, and found to his delight that he could lend him not only that pulley but another as well.
Each ran in a block which had an iron hook attached to it.

With the aid of a ladder he put the hook of one of the blocks through the staple, and then fastened the end of his rope to the block.