"There"s sh.o.r.ely 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 partic.i.p.ate 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, a.s.suring 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"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 G.o.d"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 p.r.i.c.k 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 no road "straight ahead," but the river was there. The sound of boys" voices shouting in high glee came floating up from the old swimming place. School had let out and every boy in town was in swimming. "Al-f-u-r-d" blazed a new trail to the river. Climbing over the paling fence surrounding the burying ground, through back yards, descending the steep hill, he found himself standing on the bank of the river gazing at a spectacle that stirred his young blood--half a hundred nude boys diving, splashing, swimming and shouting were in the river below.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The New Boy in Town]
His appearance was greeted with yells and laughter. He was a "new boy"
in town. "Al-f-u-r-d" was abashed by the reception accorded him. Of all the howling horde in the water below there was but one familiar face, that of Cousin Charley.
"Take off your curls and come on in, Sissy," shouted one of the swimmers. A dozen of them a.s.sured "Al-f-u-r-d" the water was "jest bully." Entreaties of "Come on in," came from dozens of boys. Advice of all kinds came from others.
The reference to the curls made "Al-f-u-r-d" wince. He had long felt that those curls were the one great impediment in his life--the one something that made him the b.u.t.t of the jokes and gibes of other boys.
He hated those curls. His first swimming experience doubly intensified his hatred for curls.
Evening was drawing near. The big yellow sun had dropped behind Krepp"s k.n.o.b, the shadows of the hills almost reached across the ruffled surface of the river. The river bottoms at the base of the hills, with their waving gra.s.ses and ta.s.sled corn, extending beyond the bend in the river opposite Albany, the old wooden bridge farther up the river, the high hills behind him, presented a scene of beauty all of which was lost upon "Al-f-u-r-d." The boys in the river held him entranced. He was absorbed in the scene, and, for the moment, he even forgot his curls.
Writers frequently refer to the Monongahela River as "murky"--but where"s the boy who ever basked in its cooling waves who will not qualify the statement that its waters are the clearest, its depths the most delightful, its ripples the softest and its sh.o.r.es the smoothest?
Jimmy Edmiston intimated to the writer that the Monongahela was only clear during a "Cheat River Rise." (Cheat is the name of a small stream of Virginia emptying into the Monongahela above Brownsville. Its waters are never muddy, no matter how heavy or protracted the rains along its course. When the Cheat River pours its transparent flood into the Monongahela the latter rises without riling. Hence the expression: "Cheat River rise.")
Jimmy has so long lived away from Brownsville that his memory is defective. a.s.sociated with the muddy Missouri he labors under the delusion that all rivers are muddy--even the Monongahela.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Old Swimming Hole]
"Al-f-u-r-d" was rudely caught from behind by several boys, undressed in less time than it took Lin to hang the hat on his curls. Nor had he barely been reduced to a state of nudity when some unregenerate in the river below let fly a lump of soft, mushy mud, large as a gourd. The mud landed squarely on the broader part of his slight anatomy. With a yelp he wiggled loose from his captors and bounded up the hill. His slender legs and body, topped with the large crop of atmospherically agitated curls, made him a figure so ludicrous that the boys yelled in ecstacy at the sight.
"Al-f-u-r-d" was recaptured by two stout-armed boys, one on either side.
They carried him to the top of the "mudslide." "Slick "er up," came the cry from all sides. This had reference to the slide upon which fell a veritable cloudburst of water splashed up from the river by the hands of a dozen devilish youngsters.
"Al-f-u-r-d" was elevated to the height of the heads of his tormentors.
In chorus from the mob at the words, "One, two, three," he was dropped to the slide, striking its soft, slick surface in an angular att.i.tude, with feet and legs waving a strenuous protest above his head. The fall gave him a momentum that sent him over the slippery surface at a speed that rushed him into the river with eyes and mouth wide open. With a splash, under he went, forcing great gulps of water down his throat.
Strangling and choking, he came to the surface, spouting like a whale calf.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Slippery Slide]
What a shout of merriment went up from his tormentors. Barely had he taken in a full breath than a bad boy--they were all bad, at least "Al-f-u-r-d" so informed Lin afterwards--again forced his head under water.
"Duck "im agin!" someone shouted as his curls floated on the surface of the water above his hidden body.
For the third time "Al-f-u-r-d" ducked--or rather, was ducked, swallowing another quart or two of Monongahela. Coming up cork-like, he tried to make his escape. Up the bank he ran choking and crying.
Unfortunately, he took the track of the slide. Half way up his feet flew from under him, landing him upon his stomach. Back he slid, feet first, his nose plowing up the soft mud, his mouth filling with the same substance. Terrified beyond expression, under the water he went, choking, strangling, struggling. He felt that his time had come.
Popping to the surface, one of the older boys stood him upon his feet, washed the mud from his mouth and nose and, by sundry "shakes,"
partially emptied him.
Fearing they had gone too far with their hazing, some of the larger boys led him further into the stream, handling him as tenderly as they had roughly, a.s.suring him of perfect safety. He was caused to lie on his stomach and, with Cousin Charley holding his broad, calloused palm against his chest, "Al-f-u-r-d" was given his first lesson in swimming.
One boy declared, even before "Al-f-u-r-d" had moved a muscle, that he had already learned to swim.
It was the consensus of opinion that the only thing that prevented his swimming was his curls. To overcome this handicap his hair was braided, tied and cross-tied and his top-heaviness reduced to a dozen scattered k.n.o.bs and knots--knots pulled so tight they glaringly exposed the white scalp between, and the tying of which brought tears to his eyes.
Even this rearrangement did not prevent his sinking time and again as the lesson progressed and finally, the mischievousness of his instructors appeased, he was led, half-dead, out of the water, up the steep bank to where he had been disrobed. As he stooped to gather up his rumpled garments a most welcome sound came to his ears:
"Al-f-u-r-d!" "Al-f-u-r-d!"
Contrary to his usual custom, the second syllable was not off the lips of Lin until, in his loudest tone, he shouted: "Yes,"m!"
When he called for Lin to "come and get me," all the boys took a header into the river, only their faces and hair-covered heads appearing above the surface; they treaded water, or swayed around on the bottom. As "Al-f-u-r-d" looked back on them they seemed like so many decapitated heads floating in s.p.a.ce, a sight that dwelt in his memory long afterwards.
When "Al-f-u-r-d" gathered his garments into his arms, endeavoring to hide his nudity, and started toward the voice, a laugh went up that made the valley echo. Lin declared: "If the tarnel critters had been dressed, she"d have thrown every last devil of "em off the raft into the river."
Owing to conditions she hid behind Mrs. Hubbard"s house and not until "Al-f-u-r-d," in his unrecognizable appearance rounded it, did he come face to face with his rescuer. Crying and sobbing he fell into Lin"s arms. Firing a volley of imprecations upon the horde that had wrought the wreck before her, Lin kept up a continuous tirade against the boys in the river; and addressing herself to "Al-f-u-r-d" between speeches, she said:
"Fur gracious, goodness sake, ef you don"t look like Granny Gadd with yer hair braided over yer head like this; hyar ye air trapesin" through town agin, mos" naked like ye did las" week. The hull town"ll be talkin"
about ye. Ye"ll give us all a bad name. Why didn"t ye put on yer clothes?"
"Al-f-u-r-d" sobbingly informed Lin of the cruelties heaped upon him in which Cousin Charley had taken part. Lin"s anger increased as the boy talked. When he told of them throwing him down in the water times without number, Lin"s indignation burst all bonds. Shaking "Al-f-u-r-d"
violently she fairly yelled as she demanded to know what he was doing while they were throwing him down. "Al-f-u-r-d" between sobs, answered:
"I wasn"t doin" nuthin"; I was gettin" up all the time."
Lin"s answer was a jerk that lifted the boy off the earth. As she smacked her palms together, she defiantly hissed:
"Ef ye had my s.p.u.n.k, ye"d hev knocked h.e.l.l"s delight out of some of "em."
The defiance of Lin, the thoughts of the cruelties practiced upon him, or some other force, changed the boy"s manner instantly from sobbing and supplicating. He became screamingly aggressive. Flying to the roadbed, which had a plentiful supply of loose stone on it, he began a fusillade on the enemy below that drove the whole horde from the raft into the river.
"Al-f-u-r-d" had practiced stone throwing since he wore clothes and, like all boys of that period, his aim was most accurate, as several of those in the old swimming hole on that eventful day will testify. A rain of stones fell on the raft; one boy, more venturesome than the others, started up the hill but "Al-f-u-r-d"s" fire repulsed him.
Lin, hidden behind the house, had changed her manner and was now pleading with "Al-f-u-r-d" to desist.
"Ye might crack some of their skulls and then they"d git out a warrant and Rease Lynch (referring to the town constable), would be after ye."