The Washington herald., 1911-08-06
How l Learned to
Swim
COPYRIGHT By JAMES ELvERsoy

tOfi"tdT III sdHES ELIEhSUS
RI WONDER if anybody ever learned
to swim as l did. In the days Of
Ill my youth, as they say in books Of
poetry, l lived in st. Paul, Mime
~ sofa, then quite small place. al
though now big city, and, in fact,
one of the biggest in the United States.
Inside the city limits there is beautiful
sheet Of water called Lake Como, where In
the summer the boys used to go to swim,
and sometimes now, while in the winter they
would skate on the smooth ice.
was about twelve years old, and, although
l was quite little athlete in my way, 1
never could muster up the courage to learn
to swim. l liked to row, but was afraid
to trust myself upon the waters Of even that
Now and then / did indeed paddle around
IN the water where it was very shallow, bud
1 was always very particular not to go out
where it was above my waist, and | always
had piece of board with me to keep me
from sinking. 3
The boys, of course, used to tease me, bud
! did not mind that as much / would
have minded going into deeper water with
out my board as q support.
One day, while I was padding around in
the lake with my board, pretending to swimi
a great tall man who was standing on tha
shore called to me. l asked him what he
wanted.
Can you swim?" he asked.
"No, SIR" I answered.
We'll, you ought to be able to; you ara
big enough
Meanwhile the man was preparing to take
II will teach you, he said.
"No, thank you, I replied.
And when he stood beside me still re-
fused
He laughed and tried to tease me. iusu
as the boys did, but it didn't have any eff
feet. Then suddenly he pounced down upoH
me as hawk would upon a chicken andi
taking me up in his strong arms, waded fat
ha IL In
The water became very deep and grew
very scared, although the man held me uni
above his head, where didn't even get wetI
1 wondered what he was going to do with
me- Surely he wouldn't drown me!
But when the water was about up to tho
mans chin, l became convinced that such
was his intention. for he threw me into tho
water, crying:
., "Idhers, dhsrs,a now, you silly boy you can swim
!, Then he turned away, as If it didn't mako
the slightest difference to him whether I
drowned or not, and he didn't care what my
choice was.
Did l drown or SWIM did the natter. %
course or | wouldn't be writing this now.
believed myself deserted and became
AFRAID that 1 would die. / struck out and
soon found | could swim just as well without
a board as l could with, and soon reached
the shore.
After that went out swimming with the
other boys and in a short time, Il / saw sS
"ysfh, was regarded as one of the besd
swimmers OF my age in st. Paul.
You wonder, suppose, whether the mani
really intended that should be drowned n
I didn't swim. OF course, he didn't. Hd
only wanted to teach me to swim. He saw
that l padded around all right and knew,
I only lacked that confidence in myself such
swimmers need. He was not far off fronJ
me during the whole time and had I bee1
In any danger am sure that he would havd
saved me at once. -
1t was, after all, rather heroic way t,s
legations to that stranger and am not IT,
gether certain that I would ever have learned
to swim if he hadn't given me that rough