ad of finding them
as thin as tissue-paper--what wouldn't I give if I could be like that?
My life has been a sad one. But I might find some comfort in it yet if
I coin only get that natty little spat on the water when I lunge forward
swimming overhand.

We used to think the Old Swimming-hole was a bully place, but I know
better now. The sycamore leaned well out over the water, and there was
a trapeze on the branch that grew parallel with the shore, but the water
near it was never deep enough to dive into. And that is another occasion
of humiliation. I can't dive worth a cent. When I go down to the slip
behind Fulton Market--they sell fish at Fulton Market; just follow your
nose and you can't miss it--and see the rows of little white monkeys
doing nothing but diving, I realize that the Old Swimming-hole with all
its beauties, its green leafiness, its clean, long grass to lie upon
while drying in the sun, or to pull out and bite off the tender,
chrome-yellow ends, was but a provincial, country-fake affair. There
were no watermelon rinds there, no broken berry-baskets, no orange peel,
no nothing. All the fish in it were just common live ones. And there was
no diving. But at the real, proper city swimming-place all the little
white monkeys can dive. Each is gibbering and shrieking: "Hey, Chim-meel
Chimmee! Hey, Chim-mee! Chimmee! Hey, CHIM-MEEEE! How'ss t 'iss?"
crossing himself and tipping over head first, coming up so as to "lay
his hair," giving a shaking snort to clear his nose and mouth of water,
regaining the ladder with three overhand strokes (every one of them
with that natty little spat that I can't get), climbing up to the
string-piece and running for Chimmy, red-eyed, shivering, and dripping,
to ask: "How wass Cat?" And I can't dive for a cent--that is, I can't
dive from a great elevation. I set my teeth and vow I just will dive
from ten feet above the water, and every time it gets down to a poor,
picayune dive off the lowest round of the ladder. I blame my early
education for it. I was taught to be careful about pitching myself head
foremost on rocks and broken bottles. I used to think it was a fine
swimming-hole, and that I was having a grand, good time, well worth any
ordinary licking; but now that I have traveled around and seen things, I
know that it was a poor, provincial, country-jake affair after all.
The first time I swam across and back without "letting down" it was
certainly an immense place, but when