“Oh, she’ll keep in practice all right,” he said, “but I wouldn’t bother with a piano.” He did not explain this, but went away soon after. “I’ll do my best to find you an island,” he said cryptically, as he departed, “but the chances are she can swim.”
That last sentence of his made Tish thoughtful, and she determined that, if our summer was to be spent on the sea, we should all learn to swim. I cannot say that the result was successful. Indeed, our very first lesson almost ended in a tragedy, for it was Tish’s theory that one must start in deep water.
“The natural buoyancy of the water is greater there,” she said. “One goes in and then simply strikes out.”
She did this, therefore, standing on the diving board in the correct position—the instructor was not yet ready—and made a very nice dive. But she did not come up again, although the water was very agitated, and after a time Aggie became alarmed and called the instructor. He found her at last, but she was so filled with water that we abandoned the lesson for the day.
As the instructor said to her, “All you need is a few goldfish, lady, and you’d be a first-class aquarium.”
And then, with all our ideas of setting Lily May an example of dignity and decorum, along about the middle of June Hannah, going out on a Thursday, came creeping in about nine o’clock at night and brought in the tray with cake and blackberry cordial, with her hat on.
“What do you mean,” Tish demanded, fixing her with a stony glare, “by coming in here like that?”
Hannah set the tray down and looked rather pale.
“It’s my hat, Miss Tish,” she said; “and it’s my head.”
“Take it off,” said Tish. “Your hat, not your head. Not that you’d miss one more than the other.”