“That’s just about the size of it,” Richard admitted. “I was be-governessed and be-tutored all my young days. I was a frail lad, you know. You wouldn’t believe it to see me now. I’m like Theodore Roosevelt in that respect. You know he was a discard in his young days, but he built himself into the prize-fighter class. That’s what they did with me.... I got so used to being out of things which other boys were doing that, somehow, I didn’t miss them. I was almost seventeen before I began to put on weight.”
“Didn’t you ever go swimming and orchard robbing and nutting with the ‘gang’?” Jerry asked.
“Never.”
“You poor boy!”
“Poor!” ejaculated Phœbe, then slapped a hand over her mouth and retreated into the house. “How ever am I going to keep my mouth shut?” she asked herself. “The only thing for me to do is to go out and dig garden until they go away.”
The signal to go swimming was given again.
“Sure!” Richard assented with alacrity. “What’s the way to answer that?”
“Two fingers of the left hand for ‘All right,’ and one finger for ‘Can’t.’”
He waved his two fingers and darted into the house.
When he came out he found her in the water at the head of the dock. Certainly as she moved about with exquisite grace in the transparent water she looked like some lithe aquatic animal.