Nathan demurred. He could not have explained just why. But the girl was not to be denied. She laughed at his discomfiture, sat down near the water’s edge, removed her pretty buckled slippers, peeled off her lisle stockings, rolled up her underclothing. Then she waded—timidly at first—out into the brook, squealing with delight. And she pulled her skirts higher and higher. Finally she had them above her dimpled knees.
From his place on the bank, Nathan watched her and yet tried not to watch her. Much of the real Bernice, down underneath her mother’s affectation and snobbery, was revealed that day in the extravagance of her kisses and the bold display of her limbs.
Four short years later Bernice Gridley was a mother. So it was more than a child’s sexless figure displayed to young Nathan that day. The boy’s nerves began cutting strange capers. Across forehead and chest was a queer, constricted feeling.
The girl kicked and shrieked and played in the water. She called upon Nathan to follow. But the perturbed boy, discovering for the first time that his physical being was a thing apart from himself, tried to behave indifferently, interest himself in something else. For him the girl—all girls—changed again with that experience. Bernice was no longer a fellow human, a playmate, even some one to be kissed deliciously.
Bernice laughed when she beheld the perturbation she was causing. Secretly she exulted. It was the first time she had been privileged to thus test her physical charm maliciously.
But more than the disclosure of the Gridley girl’s limbs was in store for Nathan that afternoon. Bernice splashed in the water until she slipped and fell. With a wild scream and a tremendous plunge, she went down and for a sickening moment the water eddied over her.
Nathan was in the brook at once. He clutched at Bernie’s dress before she could be carried out into the greater depth. Unmindful of himself, he got his arms beneath her. With the panic-stricken girl gasping and choking, he lifted her and carried her back to shore.
The water made her lacy clothing sinuous about her body.
“I’m wet—wet—wet to the s-s-skin!” she chattered, as she tried to pull her sloppy skirts about her limbs—velvety limbs, now ruddy with the shock of the water. “Oh, what will I do—whatever will I do?”
“Guess by the looks of the sky, both of us is goin’ to get still wetter before we leave,” Nathan managed. “We’re goin’ to have a nawful shower. Listen!”