The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1884-12-06
The SwimmIn' Place.


l mean swimming placer" Not
much I do not. I mean swimmin'
place. never heard it called anything
else, and I've been right there at the
place, and swum-no, not swan. we
didn't swan in those days, swum
swum in it a thousand times, and you
never saw the place don't suppose.
There was one boy, come to think of it,
who called it a swimming place. He
came from Vermont; his uncle was a
judge, or Governor, or shoemaker. or
something of that kind. He said awf-
tahnoon and grawss and he called
burr buh. He came up to Charley
Eltlng's with us one 'awftahnoonn and
said it was charming swimming place.
and asked Bud Peters if the s'watah
was wahm." Bud he told him how
warm it was, and then said it was
cooler and nicer in the shade, right
where the big fiat rock was. And this
boy who called it a swimming place, he
went down to the big rock-you re-
member, right under the ice chute?-
and jumped in.
There were two things that COM
blned, as Bud Peters had truly said, to
make the water cooler for all, and nieel
for some purposes, right by the big fiat
rock. One was living spring OF clear.
cold water that came gushing up out OF
the deep. cold. sunless caverns of the
earth right there. The other was the
rock was also the terminal point of a
drain from the big ice-houses, and the
water from the melted ice, whenever it
melted, mingled IFS frostiness with the
limpid currents of the spring, and thus
developed latent heat that couldn't
have been much latenter in an iceberg.
AS | remarked, right here the boy who
called it a swimming place jumped in.
Now, if boy feels to say that he
would like to holier, am the one to
get up every time and move the unani-
nous consent of the house that he may
holler with a free course, and no re-
straint or embarrassment. So, when
this boy, after jumping into about five
feet OF lce-water, gave one horrified
gasp that was enough to curdle the ice.
and then held his breath for second,
and stood with his two 9Rssstanding
out past his nose. and thrust bis hands,
with all fingers extended, high up in
the air, | knew that he was seized with
strange, morbid desire to make little
noise, so | said to my comrades:
Fellows, stand back and give him
plenty of room. He's going to holler.
and he II need all the air he can get.
fell off the chute into that spring once
myself.
You see how broad experience in
this life enables US to put ourselves
more thoroughly in our neighbours
place, and deepens and intensities oul
sympathies.
The next moment my gloomy fore
bodings We're realized The nice bov-
''hollered. A wild, free howl, that
spread its sweeping pinions on the blast
and went booming over the waste oi
waters like thing of life. and wakened
a thousand discordant echoes in the
distant hills beyond the startled lake.
And the half-clad boys on the pebblv
shore danced like wild cannibals in
their savage glee, and shrieked In
mocking echo of the nice boys howl,
and cast sand upon each others red
ribbed backs to show their Joy And
when that boy tloundered and fluttered
ashore. and stood there shivering and
gasping in the lie giving rays of the
July sun, we lay down on the ground
and held our aching sides with penitent
hands, and only asked the, one poor
boon that the ice-house might fall over
on top of US right then and there. Only
one boy, who had enjoyed himself more
than the others, asked that some kind
person would amputate his limbs, or,
as he rudely expressed himself in song;
"Saw my leg off" Then we rubbed the
cold boy with dry sand until we got him
nice and warm and red and real tender,
and he became good boy and went W tn
us often, and learned many things, and
we eventually taught him to say ''swim.
min hole" But to the end of his days his
provincial accent chung to him. and he
spelled rat, .'ah at, r-r-r-rat," and
called war-horse a wah-hoss. -R. j.
Bsfaette. an burlington HGwkeye.