The Alaska citizen., 1915-09-13

water and you stay right on top. It's just like lying in bed. It's lots of fun
 Then papa showed me how to swim. Of course. you can't swim very much in a bathtub, but papa showed me just how to move my hands and feet. and when was only little girl. two and half years old, he showed me exactly how to swim without taking me into the water at all
 Papa used to give me swimminy Z lessons in the parlor It sounds funny. doesn't it. swimming in the parlor where there isn't any water? But that is what he did What do you think we used for water? The piano stool.
 Yes, papa used to lay me down on the piano stool and then he would tell me just how to move my hands and legs-jusj as it was in the water, too, because some times the piano stool would turn around a bit and I would really think l was going through the water.
 That was how learned the breast-stroke. The breast-stroke is ip h.. stroke everybody should know, be- cause 1t doesn't make your arms or legs ache and you can keep it up ever so long. Of course, you cant go so fast when you are swim ming the breast-stroke. but you can keep in the water longer that way. When brother turns over the canoe, and We are a long way from shore a!l I've got to do is to use the breast-stroke and I will get in even
 if it takes an awful long while be- cause you never get tired swimming the breast stroke.
 When l was learning the breast stroke on the piano stool, would start with my arms and legs stretch ed out just as far as 1 could, my just the sides of the first finger of each hand together. My toes were stretched out just as far as possi ble.
 Then papa would say One" ana l would part my hands and make a half circle with each one so hat at the end my hands would be at my chin in the same way as trey were when they were stretched out. My legs would be drawn up at the same time by drawing up my knees so that they would nearly hit the legs of the piano stool. I would not draw my knees up together, but just a little apart
 Then papa would say Two" and l would shoot my hands forward again and at the same time, kick cut with my feet as hard as could-just as if they had shoes on them and l wanted to kick thelr off When l kicked out like that l would keep my feet very far apart, as if I wanted to kick one shoe off in one direction and the other off in another direction.
 Then papa would say Three" and would bring my legs together again as they were at first.
 l used to do this ten or twelve times a day for ever so long, and it made my arms nice and fat and didn't get tired at all like l did when I first tried it.
 Then when summer came and papa used to go into the water he took me along and, of course, l wasn't afraid at all, because papa can swim just like a fish and he took me out with him into the water. When he let me go, of course, it seemed as though l would go down under the water, but then l remembered how l used to float in the bathtub and tried that and it was very easy It was even easier in the water than it was in the bathtub. Papa says it is because the sea is salt water and it is easier to keep up in salt water.
 Then papa made me do ny swim ming lesson in the water just as had done it in the parlor only, of course there wasn't any piano stcol. Eut papa just put one nand under my chin and counted. "One," Two" Three" in just the same way, and before l knew it I was swimming all by myself.
 l really think papa must be tell ing a fib when he says some grown