OK... After I sent my first question we got the pump to prime up and we got water into the house... not the strongest pressure but OK... but there was A lot of air in the water... so much so that the water came out cloudy... since it was midnight we cut the pump off.
This AM when I turned it back on and tried to flush the john... the noise was really strange... lots of sputtering, etc. Turned pump back off... aargh!. went out to pump house and saw water all over the pad... Could see/feel water coming from the fitting where to pipe from the well goes into the pump... Could that be where the system is "sucking" air in now?? We are in Florida on the east coast... we have been in a semi drought but we have had much worse and not lost water... When you say put a string and washer down the pipe... you mean the main well input pipe right?? How long should it go down and get wet or not and how do we determine what that means? I would call in "The Man" but we can't afford him right now... unless we have absolutely no choice... My husband and son-in-law are both very handy diy'ers... but they are doing this after work so it's taking longer... Thanks for any advice you can give us... We're on our 3rd waterless day... and let me tell you hauling water from the pool is some work out :)

Forget the string. You will have to repair the leak in the pipe. Your pump is sucking air in through the break in the pipe. This will involve, at the least, replacing the leaking fitting.