Me and Swatty and Bony knew where Shebberd's was, because when you were over in Illinois you could get a drink of water there.
I guess it was almost a mile across the river and then it was almost five miles back to Shebberd's bottom land cornfield. We got a skiff at the boathouse and me and Swatty and Bony rowed across the river. The water was mighty high and the current was everywhere and not just in one place, and it was strong. Bony sat in the stem and me and Swatty rowed and we had to row almost straight up-stream. It was hard work. My wrists swelled up and got hot and tight but we kept thinking about the divorce we didn't want Bony's folks to get and we kept on rowing. Even with the boat pointed almost straight up-stream we were about half a mile below where we started, when we reached the Illinois side and rowed in among the trees. It was easier there; not so much current.
It was fine rowing through the trees, seeing everything, and nothing looking like it usually does. We came to the First Slough and it was just water—like a road of water between the trees—and we kept on rowing and came to the Second Slough and the Third Slough and they were like that, too, and then we came out of the trees and we were in a whale of a lot of water. Bony said, “Oh!” and Swatty looked over his shoulder and said, “Garsh!” and stopped rowing. It looked like miles and miles of water—water we had never seen before—and all at once you felt little and lost and sort of frightened.
“Garsh!” Swatty said. “I was never here before.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
Swatty looked all around.
“I don't know,” he said. “I never heard of a place like this.”
“Swatty!” I said.
“What?”
“Let's go home!”