Work and Water by Frank R. Stockton

It is so easy for most of us to get a drink of water when we feel thirsty, that we are not apt to even think of the vast amount of thought and labor and money that is necessary in many parts of every country in the world in order to give people a glass or a cup of water when they want it.

And yet water is often a very costly thing, so much so indeed that there are lands where people, and civilized people too, cannot afford a drink of it every time they feel thirsty.