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July 20. the race is to be next Wensday. They is Pewt and Beany and Fatty Gilman and Fatty Melcher. Boog and Whack and Puzzy was going to race but they wanted to have it at sandy bottum and we fellers wanted to have the diving mach at the oak and the swiming under water at the gravil becaus it is wider there, and so they was mad and woodent come in.

Ennyway sandy bottum isent wide enuf and you cant tell whether a feller is swiming one foot on bottum. today i went in 7 times. ferst i practised swiming fast bullfrog fashion. next i practised side stroak next i practised swiming under water. i swum 5 times acros at the gravil. then i practised floteing, but i cant flote without keeping my hands moving. ferst my feet sink and when i get straight up and down my head goes under. then i div until my head aked like time agen. i feel prety tired tonite.

Side, water verry Swift, the bluff are blackish Clay & Coal for about 80 feet. the earth above that for 30 or 40 feet is a brownish yellow, a number of bars of corse gravil and Stones of different Shape & Size &c.

Rashe Belnap and Horris Cobbs go in swimming every morning at six o'clock. i got a licking today that beat the one Beany got. last summer me and Tomtit Tomson and Cawcaw Harding and Whack and Poz and Boog Chadwick went in swimming in May and all thru the summer until October. one day i went in 10 times. well i dident say anything about it to father so as not to scare him. well today he did go to Boston and he said i am going to teech you to swim. when i was as old as you i cood swim said he, and you must lern, i said i have been wanting to lern to swim, for all the other boys can swim. so we went down to the gravil and i peeled off my close and got ready, now said he, you jest wade in up to your waste and squat down and duck your head under. i said the water will get in my nose. he said no it wont jest squat rite down. i cood see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter. so i waded out a little ways and then div in and swam under water most across, and when i came up i looked to see if father was supprised. gosh you aught to have seen him. he had pulled off his coat and vest and there he stood up to his waste in the water with his eyes jest bugging rite out as big as hens eggs, and he was jest a going to dive for my dead body. then i turned over on my back and waved my hand at him. he dident say anything for a minute, only he drawed in a long breth. then he began to look foolish, and then mad, and then he turned and started to slosh back to the bank where he slipped and went in all over.

July 26. brite and fair. the fellers plaid a meen trick on me today. the meenist i ever see. i wont ever speak to enny of them agen. this morning we had the race. ferst we had the fast race. we started at the oak and swum down to the gravil. i was as far as from here to Beanys house ahead. so i got the apples.