United States or Qatar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The accident happened at the south end, opposite our memorable swimming-hole, a few rods from the place where I came so near being drowned years before.
An early ablution of this sort was not the custom of the farmers along the banks of the Saco, but the Waterman house was hardly a stone's throw from the water, and there was a clear, deep swimming-hole in the Willow Cove that would have tempted the busiest man, or the least cleanly, in York County.
Its shores furnished such a boy playground as never was known anywhere else in all the world for it was a gentle river, a kindly playfellow, an understanding friend; and it seemed fairly to thrill in responsive glee when I plunged, naked and untamed, beneath the eddying waters of the swimming-hole under the overhanging wild-plum tree.
Full or dry, fresh or rotten, the pond was known as the 'swimming-hole. At the time I speak of, the water was about half-gone, in both senses, and evaporating at the rate of an inch a day.
I could get rid of it along with much moral and mental virtue, unfortunately possibly at the Runnymede swimming-hole, or failing that, at the place where the Lachlan had been. "Stiff little breeze we had," I remarked, as I sat down to supper.
In such moments of illumination the father reflected uneasily that "the little beggar must have a beastly lonesome time of it"; then, surveying the little beggar's choice company of pets, gazing upon the dam he had built with his own busy hands, inspecting approvingly his prowess in the swimming-hole and with his fish-rods, even noting, in his conscientious appraisal of his heir's assets, the self-assertive quality of the freckles on his nose and the sunburn on the whole of his visage, this perfunctory American parent easily decided that nothing need be changed for another year or two.
To her I was no longer the frightened, shivering boy of the mountain brook. I was in a land I knew and followed its familiar ways without fear. One day she saw me tumble from the bridge into the deep swimming-hole, and while she cried out in fright I swam nonchalantly ashore, a full dozen strokes, and as I dried myself in the sun I reproved her for her little faith in me.
I used to think it was a fine swimming-hole, and that I was having a grand, good time, well worth any ordinary licking; but now that I have traveled around and seen things, I know that it was a poor, provincial, country-jake affair after all.
But that is kind of common, I think. They told about it at the swimming-hole above the dam, but nobody was mean enough to do it. Maybe they did it down at the Copperas Banks below town. Under the slow method of learning to swim one had leisure to observe the different fashions dog-fashion and cow-fashion, steamboat-fashion, and such.
And I rather pity the boys that lived by the sea. They had a good time in their way, I suppose, with sailboats and things, but the ocean is a poor excuse for a swimming-hole. They say salt-water is easier to swim in; kind of bears you up more. Maybe so, but I never could see it; and even so, if it does, that slight advantage is more than made up for by the manifold disadvantages entailed.
Word Of The Day