Part 8

Wearily you return to the kitchen, and apply your oozy, slippery boots to the bootjack. Then, having abandoned your footgear, their once gay tops now a sodden maroon and their copper toes already showing effects of the friction whereby they steered you down the hill, to steam behind the kitchen stove, you obey orders to go upstairs and change into the dry clothing that mother has thoughtfully laid out.

What a nuisance mothers are! Oh, dear, won’t supper _ever_ be ready!

“Billy Lunt an’ Chub Thornbury’s got a bob. Let’s us make one,” proposed Hen.

“Let’s,” you agreed.

So, combining equipments, you and he proceeded, in emulation. The two sleds were connected by a board seven feet long, bolted as securely as possible to the rear sled, and fastened to the front one by a single bolt which acted as a pivot—and which, at a sudden jerk, would pull out, and throw the major portion of the bob upon its own resources.

However, the bob was a very good bob, and when cleverly shoved off and expertly steered gallantly maintained itself against all comers; even against Fat Day’s more aristocratic “boughten” bob, which, with its gay paint and varnish and rail “hand-holts,” was the pride of Fat’s heart and the apple of his stingy eye.

Hen steers (for steering is a science) and you shove off (for shoving off is an art). Between you two, pilot and captain of the craft, it packed, on occasion, an inconceivable number of passengers, with always room for one more.

“Gimme a ride. Lem_me_ ride!” beseech friends.

“Aw, you can’t! There ain’t any room!”

“There is, too! I can get on, all right.”

“G’wan! Don’t you let him, John! Don’t you let him, Hen! We’re all squashed now!”

This from the jealous load already booked.

“Shove up, can’t you! Aw, shove up! What’s the matter with you! There’s lots of room!”

And the pestiferous intruder squeezes in. The bob looks like a gigantic caterpillar upside down, so thick are the heads and shoulders in a series of ridges. The board creaks. The load also complains, grunting uneasily as each boy, fitting like a bootjack into the boy before, his legs stretched horizontally along either flank, tries to “shove up closer.” Hen, his feet braced against the stick nailed across the points of the guiding sled, is the only unit of the mass that enjoys any elbow-space. But then, the pilot of a vessel is _ex officio_ the favored personage.

“Darn it, lift up your feet, there!”

“Then somebody hold ’em! Grab my feet, somebody!”

“Whose feet _I_ got, anyway?”

“Aw, quit your shovin’ so!”

“G’wan an’ push off. We don’t want any more.”

“Gimme some room!” you plead. “I only got about an inch!”

They hitch along, and cede you another inch.

“Clea-ear the track!”

You bend and push. The bob starts. It gathers way. One concluding effort, and you land aboard just as it is outstripping you; and kneeling upon your scant two inches, hanging for dear life to the shoulders of the boy in front of you, are embarked for your rapturous yet excruciating flight.

With lurch and leap, with whoop and cheer, down zips the bob, every lad clutching his neighbor as he may, each cemented to each—but you, out in the cold, clutching most desperately of all.

“I’m fallin’ off!” you announce wildly.

The two inches are only one and a half.

“Jocko’s fallin’ off!”

How delightful—for the others! The news of your lingering predicament is received with hoots of wicked glee.

Around the curve, with everybody leaning, and the rear sled slewing outward whilst you balance on its extreme edge. Going—

Over the culvert, a double jounce, and now you are all but gone. Going, going—

On the level, nearing the finish, speed slightly abated; and now your tired fingers relax, you cannot hang on any longer, your knees slip, going, going—_gone_; but gone more gracefully than you had reason to expect.

“You didn’t gimme any room!” you accuse, angrily, when you meet your squad as in rollicking mood they tow the bob back toward the crest.

* * * * *

The old hill is not what it used to be. It has been “graded.” No more do the sleds flash adown as they once did. A new-fangled set of city ordinances forbids. Hazardous curve and inspiring “belly-bumper,” tippet and copper-toed boots, clipper and bob, have vanished together, leaving only a few demure little boys in overcoats, and demure little girls in muffs and boas, who sit up straight and properly descend, at a proper pace, along the outskirts—and think that they are having fun!

Good-by, old hill.

GOIN’ SWIMMIN’

GOIN’ SWIMMIN’

THE sun was laying a fervid course higher and higher athwart the bending blue; in household kitchens was the odor of sassafras tea—and in your mouth the taste of it; the air was humid, the earth was mellow, winter flannels a sticky burden, shoes burning shackles; snakes had long been out, and turtles were emerging, to bask, and to pop in, as of old, with exasperating freedom; you yearned to follow them.

The water _looked_ warm. Snoopie Mitchell, always authority on everything, bluffly asserted that it _was_ warm. But Snoopie appeared to have a hide impervious to discomfort. Snoopie did as he pleased, and nothing ever hurt him, notwithstanding. Sometimes you wished that your father and mother would observe, and learn, to your profit.

“Dare you to go in swimmin’!” volunteered Billy Lunt, that hot spring noon, when it seemed to you that you must burst out of your smothering clothes as a snake out of his skin.

“Aw, we ain’t afraid; are we, Hen?” you answered promptly, enrolling Hen for support.

“No. We’ll go if you will,” retorted Hen.

“Snoop Mitchell—he’s been in an’ he says it’s dandy,” informed Billy.

Of course! That Snoopie! He was well named.

“Aw—I bet he ain’t, just the sam-ee,” you faltered enviously.

“He has, too. You ask him, now.”

And Snoopie at the moment opportunely sauntering near, Billy hailed him:

“Snoopie! Ain’t you been in swimmin’ already?”

Snoopie grandly nodded, and nonchalantly spat betwixt two front upper teeth.

“Course I have,” he answered. “Ain’t you kids been in yet? Aw, gee!”

“Was it warm?” you inquired humbly.

“Jus’ right. Makes you feel fine. We go in every day, about—me an’ Spunk Carey.”

That settled it. The swimming season had opened.

During the afternoon at school you and Hen and Billy were in an ecstatic tremor. From behind his geography Billy darted into sight two fingers, you responded, daringly, with two fingers, and Hen telegraphed quick accord with like two fingers—the mysterious “V” sign of the Free Masonry of swimmers.

Teacher saw, and frowned; but “teacher,” by reason of her limitations of sex, could not appreciate what you were having, and what she was missing.

With a proud consciousness, you and Hen and Billy foregathered after school and started creekward.

“We’re goin’ swimmin’!” you called back to former associates.

“Aw, it’s too cold!” they complained.

“We don’t care. ‘Twont’ hurt us.”

“Bet you don’t go in!”

“Bet you a hundred dollars we do!”

“Bet you two hundred you don’t!”

(Dollars meant so much less to you in those days than in these.)

“You come along and see!”

“Uh-uh. We’re goin’ to play ball.”

Very well; let them stay and play ball, if they liked. You would be entitled to strut on the morrow.

In the afternoon sun the creek lay smiling, inviting, deluding. Upon its bank a new crop of tin cans testified that the fishing season, also, had opened. Some of the cans were yours. The grass was soft, and sitting on it you vied with Hen and Billy in pulling off shoes and stockings.

“First in!” challenged Billy, hastily peeling.

You fumbled with the buttons which united waist with knickerbockers, and silently resolved that you would let him beat. Evidently Hen was of mind identical. Billy, now naked like some young faun, but singularly white and spindly, gave a coltish little kick and prance, and, with ostentatious gusto, advanced to the water’s edge.

Yourself exposed to the world, feeling oddly bare and defenseless—a feeling which with wont would disappear, as the summer wore on—you stood and, shivering, wrapped yourself in your arms and watched him.

Billy stuck a toe into the water and quickly drew it back.

“Is it cold?” you queried.

“Naw! Come on!” he urged.

“Let’s see you go in first.”

“That ain’t fair. You come in, too!”

“Naw! You dared us. You got to do it first,” declared Hen.

“Huh, I ain’t afraid,” asserted Billy.

Resolutely he put one foot in. Involuntarily he flinched—but he followed it with the other. Witnessing his actions, reading that his toes were curling, you and Hen jeered and whooped. As you jeered, you continued to huddle, and to shrink within yourself. Gee, but it was cold! Somehow, the sun did not warm, and a little breeze, heretofore unnoted, enveloped you with an icy breath. You humped your shoulders, and your teeth chattered. Hen’s teeth, also, were chattering. You could hear them.

“Go on! Duck over!” you told Billy, derisively.

Billy was game. Suddenly, with water up to his quaking knees, he ducked. In an instant he was upright again—staggering, gasping, sputtering, but triumphant.

“Come on in!” he implored, wildly solicitous that you and Hen, hooting your glee, should participate more actively. “’Tain’t cold. What’s the matter with you?”

Followed by Hen you diffidently moved forward. Shivering, gingerly you teetered down, twigs and little stones hurting your yet tender soles.

Billy ducked again, apparently with the utmost relish, and floundered and splashed, his energy very marked.

You experimented with a foot—and hastily jerked it out.

“Gee!” you exclaimed. “I ain’t goin’ in! It’s too cold.”

“I ain’t, neither,” decreed Hen.

“Aw, ’tain’t cold a bit when you’ve wet over,” assured Billy eagerly—but suspiciously blue. “Take a dare—aw, I wouldn’t take a dare! You’re stumped! Yah-ah! I’ve stumped you!”

Diabolically did Billy flounder and gibe. He paused, expectantly, for you planted a foot, and gasped, and followed with the other; so did Hen.

Billy playfully splashed you.

“Come on!” he cried. “Come on!”

“Ouch! Quit that, will you?” you snarled, as the poignant drops stung your thin skin. “I’m comin’, ain’t I?”

Deeper, a little deeper, you went, with your piteously pleading flesh trying to recede from that repellant glacial line creeping up, inch by inch.

Billy shrieked with joy. What is misery when it has company!

“Duck!” he cackled. “Duck! ’Twon’t be cold after you’ve ducked.”

Must you? Oh, must you? Yes. You drew a long breath, shut your eyes, and desperately butted under. So, you dimly were conscious, did Hen.

Ugh! You choked; your stomach clove flat against your backbone, and in you was not space for air. Blindly you recovered, and lurched and clawed and fought for breath, while Billy rioted with wicked exultation.

“’Tain’t c-c-cold, is it?” you gasped defiantly.

“No; ’tain’t c-c-cold a bit,” chattered Hen.

“I told you ’twasn’t cold,” sniggered Billy.

But you impetuously plashed for shore; so did Hen; so did Billy. With numbed fingers you made all haste to pull your clothes over the goose-flesh of your weazened limbs and your shuddering little body. You began to grow warmer. You tried to control rattling teeth.

“’Twasn’t cold!”

“Of course it wasn’t!”

“We’ll tell all the kids it’s bully.”

“Gee! I feel fine, don’t you?”

“You bet!”

“Let’s come again.”

“Let’s come to-morrow.”

“N-no, I can’t come to-morrow,” you declared.

“I can’t, either,” said Hen.

Retrospect was most delightful; but prospect—well, here was a case where the prospect did _not_ please. Anyhow, you had not been stumped. Your honor was intact—and you could rest on your laurels. You could nicely combine discretion with valor; so why not?

“I’ve been in swimmin’,” you ventured, with becoming modesty, at the supper-table that evening.

“John! When?” reproved mother, aghast

“To-day, after school.”

You endeavored to speak with the carelessness befitting a seasoned nature such as yours—but you awaited with some inward trepidation family developments.

“Why!” ejaculated mother.

You felt that she was gazing across at father. Much depended, you realized, upon father. However, he had been a boy, and he surely would understand.

“But wasn’t the water too cold?” she questioned anxiously.

“Uh-uh,” you signified, steadily eating.

“It _must_ have been cold,” insisted mother. “Why, the sun hasn’t had time to warm it yet. I should think you’d have frozen to _death_!”

“It was dandy. Makes you feel fine,” you assured boldly. “Billy Lunt dared Hen and me, and—”

“I suppose if some other boy dared you to jump off the top of the church steeple you’d do it, then,” stated mother severely.

“He’d have to do it first,” you explained with a giggle.

“Well, I _should_ think you’d have frozen,” murmured mother, with an appealing glance at father.

Perhaps _she_ would have frozen—being, like “teacher,” of a sex unfortunate. But not you—nay, not mighty, dauntless, much-experienced you, with your ten long years backing you up. Huh!

* * * * *

Not always was swimming thus a task; the embrace of the creek, deceitful and inhospitable.

Ah, those glorious, piping, broiling summer days, when from the faded sky the heat streamed down, and from the simmering earth the heat streamed up; when abroad, in the maples and the elms and the apple-trees incessantly scraped with ghoulish glee the locusts, and in the fields the quail cried perseveringly, “Wet! More wet! More wet!” when the sun ruled absolutely, and everybody—save you and your fellows—stewed and panted under his sway; “dog-days”—aye, and, boy-days! Then, then, at the swimming-hole the kingdom of boyhood held high carnival.

All nature lay lax and heaving, seeking shade and avoiding exertion, as outward bound through the stifling afternoon you and Hen hastened for the swimming-hole. Even the birds were subdued, and the drone of the bumble-bee was languid, protesting; but what did you and Hen care about such things as temperature or humidity? Goodness! You were “goin’ swimmin’!”

As you pattered on, you and he, the boards of the sidewalk scorched your bare soles, toughened as they were, and even the baked earth of the pathway along the vacant lots tortured, so than with “ouches” and “gees” you hopped for shaded spots or sought the turf. Beat down upon your flapping straws the strenuous sun—his beams, after all, not unfriendly, but merely testing, and in a hearty way, welcoming.

He recognized you two as akin to the meadowlarks and the gophers, and he knew that he might not harm you. You were immunes.

The outskirts of the village are reached right speedily; and now off at a tangent, athwart the drowsy, palpitating pasture where the bees are busy amidst the clover, making for a fringe of trees leads a path worn by many a hurrying, bare, and buoyant sole.

You can hear, ahead of you, an enthusing medley of gay shrieks and cries and laughter.

“Crickety!” you say to Hen, quickening the pace. “There’s a whole lot in already!”

And you are not even undressed!

On before, between the tree-trunks at your destination, you can glimpse, strewn over the sod or hanging from low branches, rejected and dejected garments—limp shirts, hickory, checked, tinted; stumpy trousers, dangling or down-flung. You descry the patchy blue of Snoopie Mitchell’s one-suspendered overalls; so you know that Snoopie is there. You know who else is there, too. The apparel is evidence.

The sight redoubles your efforts. In rivalry with Hen, panting, perspiring, eager, you penetrate the trees and stop short on the bank. You have arrived.

Yes, here they are: Snoopie, and Billy Lunt, and Fat Day (his body covered with hives), and Skinny, and Chub, and Nixie Kemp (who can exhibit the biggest vaccination mark of all of you), and Tom Kemp (who is always peeling, somewhere), and—oh, a glorious company, wallowing like albino porpoises, threshing like whales!

“A-a-a-ah, lookee, lookee!” greets Snoopie (indefatigable, omnipresent) shrilly, grinning up at you; and for your benefit he stands on his head and waves his brown legs above the surface.

“Hello, Fat!”

“Hello, Skinny!”

“Hello, Jocko!”

“Hello, Hen!”

“Hello, Nix!”

“Come on in! Come on in!”

“Gee! It’s dandy!”

“Water’s jus’ fine! Warm as milk.”

“You’re missin’ it! We been in all day.”

Harrowing announcement!

Nor you nor Hen needs invitation by word of mouth. You are ripping feverishly at your obstinate buttons, and tugging feverishly at your pestering clinging garments. But how absurdly simple was your attire, as reviewed to-day from your environment of starch and balbriggan, hosiery and collar. Nevertheless, many a time, in your agony of haste, you envied Snoopie, who with a single movement slipped the one suspender of his overalls and ducked out of his voluminous shirt, and with a whoop was in!—happy Snoopie!

Now, investing apparel cast aside in an ignominious heap, at last free and untrammeled you stride forward. From knee down and from neck up you are dark-brown; between, you are whitish-brown. Before the season closes you will be an even brown all over (like Snoopie), if your ambition is realized.

First you must wet your head. This is the law; else you may get cramps. You hurriedly wet it.

“Look out!” you warn with a significant step or two backward, to gain momentum.

You give a little run, and with a rapturous shout and a grand splash _you_ are in. So is Hen.

Oh, bliss! The caressing, rollicking flood envelops you to the shoulders. You wade, you kick, you sputter, you blow, you plunge your length, you squeal your joy intense—you convince yourself and would convince others that you swim; and your comrades wade, and kick, and sputter, and blow, and plunge their lengths, and squeal—and ostentatiously paddle. While Snoopie, crawling about under water, grabs legs; presently grabbing yours, and down you go, beneath, to emerge strangling, clutching, incensed.

Stirred from the very bottom, all the pool is beaten to foam, the sun looks down between the spangling leaves and smiles, and the trees fondly overhang, stretching down friendly boughs.

* * * * *

What a wonder you were, as a water performer!

“See me float!” you yell—this being the popular pitch of conversation.

And you _could_ float—almost, that is, until your feet or your face sank too far and forced you to rally.

“Aw, that ain’t floatin’! Jus’ watch me!” decrees Snoopie.

Snoopie really could float—and challenging admiring eyes he proceeds to display.

“Watch _me_!” implores Fat.

“Aw, gee! Watch Fat! Aw gee! That ain’t floatin’! That ain’t floatin’, is it, Snoop? Fat wiggles his hands down by his sides!”

“Don’t either!” declares Fat, angrily, flopping his mottled self to a standing position.

“You do, too! Don’t he?”

You could stand Snoopie’s superiority, but not Fat’s.

“Well, I didn’t wiggle ’em much, anyhow,” grumbles Fat.

With breath tight held and head tilted stanchly back, launching yourself and paddling furiously dog-fashion, you can easily imagine that you are cleaving a path through the murky flood.

“You’re touchin’ bottom! Aw, you touched bottom!” accuses Fat.

“I wasn’t, either, darn you! I started ’way up there at that stick and I come ’way down here!” (The distance is at least a yard.)

Betimes, splashing out, you all seek the banks, amphibious-like; to streak yourselves fantastically with mud, to cover yourselves luxuriously with hot sand, to race, to gambol, or to loll on the turf and emulously compare sunburn, “peels,” and vaccination scars.

In again you scamper, and the pool resumes its cauldron turmoil.

The sun, from his new station low in the west, sends rays slanting in beneath the trees to signal “Home.”

“Come on, I’m goin’ out!” says Hen. “You’d better, too. Your lips are blue as the dickens.”

“So are yours,” you retort. “Ain’t they, kids! Ain’t Hen’s lips bluer’n mine?”

A farewell wallow, and out you wade reluctantly. One by one out wade all. Your hands are shriveled with long soaking. You are water-logged. There is sand in your hair. Languidly you dress.

With Snoopie and Hen and Fat and Skinny and the others—a company now chastened and subdued—back you stroll across the pasture, the setting sun in your face, the robins piping their even-song, the locusts done and quiescent, katydids tentatively tuning up as their successors. The sky is golden in the west, pink overhead, blue in the east. Upon the clover the dew is collecting, annoying o’erzealous bees. Skinny and Nix drop off to the left, Snoopie to the right, each lining his straightest course for home.

“Good-night, kids!” they call back.

Now in the village, the little group rapidly dwindles. Presently only you and Hen and Billy remain.

Billy turns in.

At his gate Hen stops.

The next gate is yours. You are glad. You are tired—so tired—so very limp and tired—and so hungry!

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL PICNIC

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL PICNIC

’TWAS the day of the picnic—the Baptist picnic. You yourself were not, by family persuasion, a member of that denomination, but the Schmidts, next door, were, and by the grace of Hen, your crony, you were enabled to gain admittance, upon occasion, into the Baptist ’bus.

The ’bus was not scandalized. You had been in it before, as Methodist, Congregationalist, Unitarian—what not. So had Hen. Only a few little girls were shocked, and gazed at you disdainfully.

“_You_ ain’t a Baptist!” they accused.

“Neither’s Blanche Davis!” you retorted, carrying the debate into the enemy’s country. “I guess I’ve got as much right here as she has!”

“I came with Lucy Barrett,” informed Blanche, primly.

“An’ I come with Hen Schmidt. His father’s a deacon, too!” you asserted.

“Oh, he ain’t—is he, Mr. Jones? He ain’t—is he?” appealed the little girls, shrilly.

Mr. Jones, beaming with long-suffering, Sunday-school-superintendent good humor, obligingly halted.

“Henry Schmidt’s father ain’t a deacon, is he?”

“Yes, I believe so,” affirmed Mr. Jones, pleasantly.

Thus you valiantly maintained your position—and Hen’s.

When you and Hen had pantingly arrived at the rendezvous you had found yourselves in the midst of baskets and bustle. The baskets gave forth fascinating, mysterious clinks. In your individual capacity of guest you had brought no basket of your own, but you had helped Hen carry down the Schmidt contribution, and you knew of what it spake and smelled, and you had peeked in under the cover. Besides, Hen had told you, in detail.

Clad in necessarily stout shoes, but quite superfluously clean waists, you and he, with the basket between, had hastened to the place of assembly.

Other boys appeared. Poor indeed was that wight who could not rake up a Baptist friend—particularly if his own church gave picnics. Therefore, behold, as at the millennium, the creeds of your world united to-day under one flag—which happened to be the Baptist.

Snoopie Mitchell, of course, was there. Snoopie usually went fishing or skating on Sunday; but at picnic-time and Christmas even he did not deny the comforts of the church.

“Hello!” you said.

“Hello!” said Snoopie nonchalantly. “Aw, you kids are too late!”

Snoopie never was too late. He had the instincts of the ranging shark, and, moreover, perfect freedom to obey them.

“Why?” demanded you and Hen breathlessly.

“They took it away. Gee! Two freezers bigger’n me!”

“More’n the Methodists had?” you inquired eagerly.

“You bet!” affirmed Snoopie.

You sighed—a happy, satisfied sigh.