Penguin Persons & Peppermints Part 12

I was not to be outdone. "Ten, twenty, thirty, forty,--" I began to mumble. Then, "One thousand!" I shouted.

"Bushel o' wheat and a bushel o' rye, All 't 'aint hid, holler knee high!"

I looked for a stick, stood it on end, and let it fall. It fell toward the boulder. "You're up in the sa.s.safras tree," I said.

"No," said Old Hundred, "that's Benny."

Then we looked at each other and laughed.

"You poor old idiot," said Old Hundred.

"You doddering imbecile," said I, "come on up to Sandy."

Somehow, it wasn't far to Sandy. It used to be miles. We pa.s.sed by Myrtie Swett's house on the way. It stood back from the turnpike just as ever, with its ample doorway, its great shadowing elms, its air of haughty well-being. Myrtie, besides a prize speller, was something of a social queen. She was very beautiful and she affected ennui.

"Oh, dear, bread and beer, If I was home I shouldn't be here!"

she used to say at parties, with a tired air that was the secret envy of the other little girls, who were unable to conceal their pleasure at being "here." However, Myrtie never went home, we noticed. Rather did she take a leading part in every game of Drop-the-handkerchief, Post Office, or Copenhagen--tinglingly thrilling games, with unknown possibilities of a sentimental nature.

"If I thought she still lived in the old place, I'd go up and tell her I had a letter for her," said Old Hundred.

"She'd probably give you a stamp," I replied.

"Not unless she's changed!" he grinned.

But we saw no signs of Myrtie. Several children played in the yard.

There was the face of a strange woman at the window, a very plain woman, who looked old, as she peered keenly at the two urban pa.s.sers.

"It _can't_ be Myrtie!" I heard Old Hundred mutter, as he hastened on.

Sandy was almost the most wonderful spot in the world. It was, as most swimming holes are, on the down-stream side of a bridge. The little river widened out, on its way through the meadows, here and there into swimming holes of greater or less desirability. There was Lob's Pond, by the mill, and Deep Pool, and Musk Rat, and Little Sandy. But Sandy was the best of them all. It was shaded on one side by great trees, and the banks were hidden from the road by alder screens. At one end there was a shelving bottom, of clean sand, where the "little kids"

who couldn't swim sported in safety. Under the opposite bank the water ran deep for diving. And in mid-stream the pool was so very deep that n.o.body had ever been able to find bottom there. In the other holes, you could hold your hands over your head and go down till your feet touched, without wetting your fingers. But not the longest fish-line had ever been long enough to plumb Sandy's depths. Indeed, it was popularly believed that there was _no_ bottom in Sandy, and a mythical horn pout, of gigantic proportions, was supposed to inhabit its dark, watery abysses.

Old Hundred and I stood on the bridge and looked down on a little pool. "I could jump across it now," he sighed. "But I wish it were a warmer day. I'd go in, just the same."

There was a honk up the road, and a touring car jolted over the boards behind us, with a load of veils and goggles. The dust sifted through the bridge, and we heard it patter on the water below.

"I fancy there's more travel now," said I. "And the alder screen seems to be gone. Perhaps we'd better not go in."

Old Hundred leaned pensively over the white rail--the sign of a State highway; for the dusty old Turnpike was now converted into a gray strip of macadam road, torn by the automobiles, with a trolley track at one side.

"There's a lucky bug on the water," he said presently. "If we were in now, we might catch him, and make our fortunes."

"And get our clothes tied up," said I.

"As I recall it, you were the prize beef chawer," he remarked. "I never could see why you didn't go into vaudeville, in a Houdini act. I used to soak the knots in your s.h.i.+rt and dry 'em, and soak 'em again; but you always untied 'em, often without using your teeth, either."

"You couldn't, though," I grinned.

"Charlo beef, The beef was tough, Poor Old Hundred Couldn't get enough!

"How many times have you gone home barefoot, with your stockings and your unders.h.i.+rt, in a wet knot, tied to your fish-pole?"

"Not many," said he.

"What?" said I.

"It wasn't often that I wore stockings and an unders.h.i.+rt in swimming season," he answered. "Don't you remember being made to soak your feet in a tub on the back porch before going to bed, and going fast asleep in the process?"

"If you put a horse hair in water, it will turn to a snake," I replied, irrelevantly.

"Anybody knows that," said Old Hundred. "If you toss a fish back in the water before you're done fis.h.i.+ng, you won't get any more bites, because he'll go tell all the other fish. Bet yer I can swim farther under the water 'n you can. Come on, it isn't very cold."

I looked hesitantly at the pool.

"Stump yer!" he taunted.

I started for the bank. But just then the trolley wire, which we had quite forgotten, began to buzz. We paused. Up the pike came the car.

It stopped just short of the bridge, by a cross-road, and an old man alighted. Then it moved on, shaking more dust down upon the brown water. The old man regarded us a moment, and instead of turning up the cross-road, came over to us.

("Know him?" I whispered.)

("Is it Hen Flint, that used to drive the meat wagon with the white top?" said Old Hundred. "Lord, is it so many years ago!")

"How are you, Mr. Flint?" said I.

"Thot I didn't mistake ye," said the old man, putting out a large, thin, but powerful hand. "Whar be ye now, Noo York? Come back to look over the old place, eh? I reckon ye find it some changed. Don't know it myself, hardly. You look like yer ma; sorter got her peak face."

"Where's the swimming hole now?" asked Old Hundred.

"I don't calc'late thar be any," said the old man. "The gol durn trolley an' the automobiles spiled the pool here, an' the mill-pond's no good since they tore down the mill, an' bust the dam. Maybe the little fellers git their toes wet down back o' Bill Flint's; I see 'em splas.h.i.+n' round thar hot days. But the old fellers have to wash in the kitchen, same's in winter."

"But the boys must swim somewhere," said I.

"I presume likely they go to the beaches," said Henry Flint. "I see 'em ridin' off in the trolley."

"Yes," said I, "it must be easy to get anywhere now, with the trolleys so thick."

"It's too durn easy," he commented. "Thar hain't a place ye can't git to, though why ye should want to git thar beats me. Mostly puts high-flown notions in the women-folks' heads, and vegetable gardens on 'em."

He shook hands again, lingeringly. "Yer father wus a fine man," he said to Old Hundred--"a fine man. I sold yer ma meat before you wus born."

Then he moved rather feebly away, down the cross-road. Presently a return trolley approached.

"Curse the trolleys!" exclaimed Old Hundred. "They go everywhere and carry everybody. They spoil the country roads and ruin the country houses and villages. Where they go, cheap loafing places, called waiting-rooms, spring up, haunted by flies, rotten bananas and village muckers. They trail peanut sh.e.l.ls, dust and vulgarity; and they make all the country-side a back yard of the city. Let's take this one."

We pa.s.sed once more the hole where the school had been, and drew near a cross-road. I looked at Old Hundred, he at me. He nodded, and we signalled the conductor. The car stopped. We alighted and turned silently west, pursued by peering eyes. After a few hundred feet the cross-road went up a rise and round a bend, and the new frame houses along the Turnpike were shut from view. Over the brambled wall we saw cows lying down in a pasture.

"It's going to rain," said I.