Ah, those glorious, piping, broiling summer days, when from the faded sky the heat streamed down, and from the simmering earth the heat streamed up; when abroad, in the maples and the elms and the apple-trees incessantly scraped with ghoulish glee the locusts, and in the fields the quail cried perseveringly, “Wet! More wet! More wet!” when the sun ruled absolutely, and everybody—save you and your fellows—stewed and panted under his sway; “dog-days”—aye, and, boy-days! Then, then, at the swimming-hole the kingdom of boyhood held high carnival.
All nature lay lax and heaving, seeking shade and avoiding exertion, as outward bound through the stifling afternoon you and Hen hastened for the swimming-hole. Even the birds were subdued, and the drone of the bumble-bee was languid, protesting; but what did you and Hen care about such things as temperature or humidity? Goodness! You were “goin’ swimmin’!”
As you pattered on, you and he, the boards of the sidewalk scorched your bare soles, toughened as they were, and even the baked earth of the pathway along the vacant lots tortured, so than with “ouches” and “gees” you hopped for shaded spots or sought the turf. Beat down upon your flapping straws the strenuous sun—his beams, after all, not unfriendly, but merely testing, and in a hearty way, welcoming.
He recognized you two as akin to the meadowlarks and the gophers, and he knew that he might not harm you. You were immunes.
The outskirts of the village are reached right speedily; and now off at a tangent, athwart the drowsy, palpitating pasture where the bees are busy amidst the clover, making for a fringe of trees leads a path worn by many a hurrying, bare, and buoyant sole.
You can hear, ahead of you, an enthusing medley of gay shrieks and cries and laughter.
“Crickety!” you say to Hen, quickening the pace. “There’s a whole lot in already!”
And you are not even undressed!
On before, between the tree-trunks at your destination, you can glimpse, strewn over the sod or hanging from low branches, rejected and dejected garments—limp shirts, hickory, checked, tinted; stumpy trousers, dangling or down-flung. You descry the patchy blue of Snoopie Mitchell’s one-suspendered overalls; so you know that Snoopie is there. You know who else is there, too. The apparel is evidence.
The sight redoubles your efforts. In rivalry with Hen, panting, perspiring, eager, you penetrate the trees and stop short on the bank. You have arrived.