“Kit, my boy,” he said at dinner, “as long as you have started in with this swimming business, I suppose you might as well keep it up. It is a pity to let that one lesson go to waste.”
Christopher’s face beamed with astonishment and delight.
“You don’t mean to say that you’re going to let me go swimming?” he cried. “Oh, cricky, that’s bully!”
“Why, yes, it seems to me that I knew how to swim when I was your age,” went on grandfather. “Suppose we let Janey go into the village with grandmother this afternoon while you and Perk and I go off on a little lark of our own. What do you say to the plan, Kit?”
“I think it would be—perfectly splendid, sir!” shouted Christopher in great excitement.
“All right, then. I’ll have Perk harness the spring wagon. Grandmother, will you ask Huldah to put us up a bite of something? A pretty liberal bite, my dear. Learning to swim is hungry work. And I thought we might pick up Bill Carpenter on the way,” he added to Christopher, “if we see him about anywhere.”
“Are you going to swim, too, grandfather?” asked Jane, folding her napkin neatly. “I should think it would be horrid in the cold, weedy water. Please don’t let Kit drown again.”
“Huh!” sniffed Christopher in his most superior manner, “I just guess there’s not any danger of me drownin’. I can swim. You just ask Perk if I can’t.”
“Well, that’s nothing to be so smart about. I could swim, too, if I chose to learn. Girls are just as clever as boys, every bit, only they don’t like such silly things.”
“The things a girl likes are heaps sillier,” retorted Christopher. “Fairies and dolls! Ho! There aren’t any such things as fairies, and who’d play with a doll? An old painted thing stuffed with sawdust!”