"Margery!" There was an almost agonized pleading in Willie Jones's voice.
"Willie Jones, will you shut up! Just because you live near us you needn't think you're my brother. 'Cause you ain't. Besides, girls can do the same as boys."
There was a last tug; those final garments which might have served as a bathing-suit slipped down over her feet, and Margery stepped forth, a skinny, defiant little Venus, challenging the world to look if it dare. It was a most embarrassing moment for the little boys. Their faces, bobbing about nervously on the surface of the water, blushed violently, and their jeers dwindled down to the merest quavers.
Her independence of custom and opinion thus emphatically established, Margery lost no time in entering the water. Sitting gingerly on the muddy bank, she slid forward one foot, then the other. Ugh! The bottom of the pond was soft and slimy, and squashed up between her toes like worms. For the first time a dreadful misgiving came over her. What if, after all, swimming were not the delightful pastime it was cracked up to be! However, there was no turning back now.
Sitting in the water, she propelled herself forward with her hands, slowly and cautiously. The little boys looked on in marked though unexpressed disapproval. Margery was putting them into a horribly awkward position—there was no doubt about that. They didn't like it, either. But in spite of themselves they were beginning to feel a certain admiration for her pluck. It was almost a pity she was a girl.
"Look out, Margery!" It was Tommy Grayson who gave the friendly warning. "They's a tin can over there."
Margery shifted her direction, and soon reached deeper water, where she was able to stand up without shocking the sensibilities of any one. The little boys were still some distance from her. The water, muddy beyond all chance of transparency, came up to their chests. To them, however, this was not enough. The excessive modesty of eight or nine made them keep even the white of their angular little shoulders primly covered.
Now, human nature can not be expected to retain forever that freshness of surprise which it feels over every new experience in life. Time, philosophy tells us, accustoms man to almost anything. It does the same for small boys. Beyond question it was enough to take the wind out of any one to see a girl coolly strip and come in swimming quite as though she were a boy, with all a boy's peculiar rights and privileges. But, astonishing as that might be, it was after all no reason for standing there all day like sticks in the mud when you might just as well be having a good time.
Margery, who was also standing like a stick, felt as bored as they. With nothing to do but gently bounce with the slight lap-lap of the water, she found herself wondering more and more just where the fun of swimming came in.