"It was like this with me. When I was about knee high to a grasshopper I went in wading and saw my daddy out in a dory about fifty feet from shore. So I went out to him. They say I didn't have much breath left when they pulled me in; I don't remember. I guess I swam, though; if I didn't I don't know how I got there. Anyhow, after that I knew how all right."
"Just imagine," mused Jack. "I know I couldn't do that, but I do want to learn. Do you think I could?"
"Course you could, but I guess it would take time. If you want me to help, I'll do it."
"Will you, really?" exclaimed the other. "Glory! that will be fine! I wanted to ask you, but didn't quite like to; I've been so much of a bother to you already."
"Oh, get out. We'll go down to the river and find a place where it's not too deep; I think I know of one. The water'll be plaguy cold, though, this early. Want to wait a while longer?"
"No, I want to begin right off--before my courage fails me; you know, I'm an awful fool about water, Anthony."
"Because you don't understand it. Water won't hurt you if you know what to do."
"And you won't mind if--if I'm a bit scary at first?"
"No, I won't mind. If you say you want me to teach you to swim, I'll do it if I have to throw you in the water and hold you there. Do you?"
Jack took a long breath and looked hard at Anthony's face in the moonlight. What he saw evidently reassured him, for after a pause he said faintly:
The nine took its first long trip when it journeyed to Cambridge and played Harvard in a warm drizzle of rain that made the ball slippery and hard to hold, and set the players to steaming like so many tea-kettles. Erskine met her second defeat of the season that afternoon. She had an attack of the stage-fright usual to the teams of lesser colleges when confronting those of the "big four," and it lasted until the fifth inning, when, with the score 9 to 0 in her favor, Harvard's pitcher slumped and allowed the bases to fill for the first time during the contest.
Erskine awakened, then, to the fact that her opponents were only human beings, after all, and not supernatural personages protected by the gods, a fact which Hanson had been seeking to convince them of all day long, but without success. With bases full, one man out, and Bissell at bat, there seemed no reason why the Purple should not place a tally in her empty column. This was evidently the view that Bissell himself took, for after having two strikes and two balls called on him, he found what he wanted and drove it hard and straight between first and second. Gilberth scored, but Billings was caught out at the plate. Motter reached third and Bissell went to second. Hanson whispered to Lowe as he selected his bat. Harvard shortened field.