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.