"Ride away, ride away. Billy shall ride," sang Gid, bouncing his burden up and down.
Willy felt like a dry leaf in an eddy, which is whirled round and round, yet is all the while making faster and faster for the hungry dimple in the middle, where there is no getting out again.
"O, dear, Gid's such a great big boy, and I'm only just eight," thought he, jolting up and down like a bag of meal on horseback. Well, it would be good fun, after all, to go in swimming,—splendid fun, when there was somebody to hold you up, and keep you from drowning. If you could forget that your mother had told you not to play with Gid Noonin!
"If you get the string of that medal wet you'll catch it," said Gid. "Better take it off and put it in your pocket."
"Just a-going to," said Willy. "D'you think I's a fool?"
Well, wasn't it nice! The water feeling so ticklish all over you, and—
Why, no, it wasn't nice at all; it was just frightful! After two or three dives, Gid had snapped his fingers in his face, and gone off and left him. Willy couldn't swim any more than a fish-hook. Where was Gid?
"The water's up to my chin. Come, Gid, quick!"
What would Seth and Stephen say if they knew how he was abused? No—his mother? No—Love, and Caleb, and Liddy? How they would feel! There wasn't any bottom to this brook, or if there ever had been it had dropped out.
"O, Gid, I can't stand up."