Watch Yourself Go By | Page 6

was reached with a parting shot from Lin:
"Drat ye!" she exclaimed, "if ye had yungins of yer own--which is
lucky for 'em that ye haven't--ye'd have some hearts in yer withered old
frames."

The spectacled maiden, apparently more frightened than the other,
began to feel what a monster she was, what an awful crime she had
committed, following an embarrassing pause, the effect of Lin's final
shot, mother again demanded the cause of "Al-f-u-r-d's" nudity.
"I s'pose I ought to have pulled down the blinds," she began
apologetically, "and let him have his swim out. Likely it wouldn't have
hurt the spring much. Still a body doesn't like to drink water out of a
spring that a boy's been swimmin' in, no matter if his folks are clean
about their house-keeping."
She was certainly sorry and so anxious to caress "Al-f-u-r-d" that she
and the mother made it up, then and there, and many an afternoon
thereafter did the two spend together bemoaning the evil spirit that had
prompted the boy to make a swimming hole of the family spring.
Kindly invitations nor the promise of sponge cake ever induced
"Al-f-u-r-d" to again visit the grounds, or the white house with green
blinds, a buggy whip with silver bands on it, a big dog and two old
maids who, according to Lin, "didn't know nuthin' 'bout children."
CHAPTER THREE
In the heydey of youth He was awfully green, As verdant in truth As
you have ever seen; But he soon learned to know beans So it seems.
"There's shorely sumthin' 'bout water that bewitches that boy," often
remarked Lin. "I never seen the like of it. I'll bet anything he'll be a
Baptis' preacher some day, jes' like Billy Hickman."
There never was a boy reared in Brownsville whose heart does not beat
a little faster, whose breath does not come a little quicker, whose
cheeks do not turn a little redder when his mind goes back to the old
swimming place near Johnson's saw-mill, where the big rafts of lumber
were moored seemingly for the pleasure and convenience of every boy
in town. The big boys had their spring-boards for diving on the outside
where the current was swifter, the water deeper, the little ones their
mud slides and boards to paddle about and float on in the shallow, still

water between the rafts and the bank.
There may have been factions and social distinctions as between the
inhabitants of the little town when garbed and groomed, but in the
nudity of the old swimming place there was a common level, and all
met on an equal footing.
James G. Blaine, Philander C. Knox, Professor John Brashear and
many others, who have climbed the ladder of Fame, were boys among
boys in this old swimming hole. It was here they were given their first
lessons in courage and self-reliance.
A balmy afternoon in late June the boys of the town were in swimming;
"Al-f-u-r-d" could plainly hear their shouts of glee as he sat in the front
yard at home. How he longed to participate in their sports. What
wouldn't he give to be free like other boys? Was there ever a boy who
did not feel that he was imposed upon, who did not imagine he was
abused above all others? Such was the feeling of "Al-f-u-r-d".
He had been subjected to a scrubbing. Lin had unmercifully bored into
his ears with a towel shaped like a gimlet at one corner, assuring his
mother he was "dirtier 'an the dirtiest coal digger in town." He was
arrayed in a clean gingham suit, topped with an emaculate white shirt,
flowing collar and straw hat. Lin spent a long time in curling his hair
despite protests. Those curls were "Al-f-u-r-d's" abomination. The more
he abominated them the longer they grew. They reached down to the
middle of his back. Arranged in a semi-circle, extending from temple to
temple, they made his head appear so abnormally large his slender
body seemed scarcely able to support it. He seemed top-heavy with his
long curls.
[Illustration]
"Al-f-u-r-d" was to go alone to grandfather's and escort him home to
dinner. There was to be company, and Lin was determined that
"Al-f-u-r-d" and his curls should appear at their best.
The road of life starts the same for all of God's children. The innocent

babe, fresh fallen from heaven to blossom on earth, sees nothing but the
beautiful at the beginning of the journey. The road is strewn with
flowers and it is only when the prick of the thorn is felt that one
realizes one is on the wrong road.
For just one short block "Al-f-u-r-d," on the occasion referred to,
traversed the right road. There the right road turned abruptly to the left.
There was