When You Were a Boy

by Edwin L. Sabin

“THE BOB WAS A VERY GOOD BOB”

“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.”