When You Were a Boy

by Edwin L. Sabin

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.”