Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-12

Il. all the SAND. and nattened out on my
stomach. She rested the tips of her fin
gers on my shoulders so easily that
hardly knew they were there.
:" I'm all right now, she said quietly.
You can so ahead, please.
Well, / had to laugh out loud. nervous
as had been about that girl only half
minute before. took the breast stroke for
it, with the girls hands just touching my
shoulders. and got In with nary a moments
bother in the 2,o-yard swim.
4 hadn't been able to take a good look
at her. and l was thinking az I swan in
school teacher. something like that 10
have her perves boited and riyeted that
way. But when she walked up on the sand
she was a strapping beauty of a girl OF
twenty-a girl out OF picture paper, And
when she found herself .. X. and tottered
to seat In the sand and began TO half
laugh and half cry. and all that. why She
was Just all girl and no mistake. But she'd
had the head to cut out the all-girl business
until she found time for IL.
Il only mention that one an example
or how the women folks are coming around
in their behavior in the surf when things
fall out a bit wrong for them. And you
can't tell me that that doesn't come pretty
nigh proving that the women are getting
more sense all the time.
But some OF them are getting to be great
kidders in the water. and when you come To
think II over you'll see that the surf ism
much OF a place for good honest kidding
MY watch mate and l were pretty badly
strung by woman In the water one morn
ing lew weeks ago. but 1 don't think
she ii do 1t any more
we had the boat out right far that fore
noon. for the tide was out and besides
there were lot of chesties showing OF be-
You'd the roller line to their beach planted
dolls, and the chesties a leetle bit more
liable to need TO be picked out than other
folks. because they exert themselves so
much In trying to make good
Wen, We were smoking our pipes and
Co Al
tail Ones when. We heard a high-E screech
about forty yards abaft of U.S. as II sound
ed. Screech? There were a dozen of EN-
all in a sudden row. and both OF us lost
good pipes overheard in our hastiness To
get the right kind of a grab on the oars
to go after the screecher
when we got the boat turned around
We saw just ahead top OF the water
where the sauawking had come from II
was a woman's head of bronze hair. with
| black bow tied right cute on top OF the
hair. She seemed to be lying face forward
on the water.
When we'd pulled the boat to within ten
yards of that bronze head we got stung
and strung. The bronze head suddenly
nited. and mighty pretty and sassy
looking young woman. with a tanned and
freckled face and snub nose looked up
at US with a pair of blue lamps as big as
taw moss agates.
She Was Only Joking.
Now. I'm not exaggerat!ng. but what
ye suppose she did then? Why. I hope
l may never sit down In front Of another
pan Of hash If She didn't give us the double
| cross with her fingers. She gave us the
! merry, gureling boot on top of that and
| then she started to swim away from us
| Man. but how that sassy freaky baggage
| of a girl could swim. There never was a
| minute in the lives of me or my watch
mate when We could have beat that freck-
| led-iaced girl a-swimming, and both of
| have had to swim a whole lot In deer
| water when there wasn't anything bigger
| than a hatch-cover or a chicken-cooD In
| sight.
She swan right around the long pier
going like a left-behind porpoise that's
| running to join the school. and we'd have
had to pull hard to catch her. But
| didn't pull after her. We just sat and
| looked at each other and cussed as we
| thought of our lost pipes and OF how that
! tously headed young snip with the sassy
eyes had put 1t all over us. 1t funny,
| and all that. but 1t was dangerous. and
against some rules that lifeguards know
| about So We were waiting for. the young
| woman when. a quarter of an hour later
| after her long swim around the pier. she
! came up on the sand, showing her teeth IN
| her laughter at US. L let my watch-mlte
| do the talking
| THAT was right cunnin' lady he said
| to the girl perfectly respectful. but kind
| o sore. at that, | myself You
| swim real nice, so you do. Never saw no
better swimmer noWhereS, In or out OF "A
| bathing skirt But, lady, US fellers amt
| planted along these beaches just to be
| fooled up a lot. but to pick folks out Of the
! water that need us. If they all fell to
| stringing us that way we'd never know
| which of EN- did need us. and thered be
some lonesome and heartsick people a.
| mourning around and wondering why the
| life guards hadn't tended to their business.
| "'All of which being the case. lady, you
| don't swim In Atlantic City waters any
| more. There's lots Of other places up and
| down the coast-Asbury, Sea Isle City, Ava
! lon and such-but you're barred off this
| stretch of sand. I'm sorry. but that goes
| as it lays
! She famed up like spitfire at that, said
| shed see who owned the Atlantic ocean
and all that. and went up to her bath
| house
| But when she appeared on the beach in
| her bathing toys the following morn
| ing there a patrol guard there to tell
| her that she might just well return to
| the bath-house and get her clothes on
| again-that there wasn't any room for her
| In the Atlantic City pillows. She tossed
her head some more and talked a lot sharp
| but that wasn't bathing.
''She came out in her boardwalk clothes,
| all quiet and demure, to the chief of the
Hfeguards the next morning. and said that
| she was sorry and was always going to
| be good In the water forever and ever aft
| erward and now she's bathing again, and
| swimming like pilot fsh-but She has quit
| stringing the guards.