when lunchtime comes, oh, aren't you hungry? And
the woods and the grass smell so fine!"

"I don' know, Miss Sieppe," he answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the
ground between the rails. "I never went on a picnic."

"Never went on a picnic?" she cried, astonished. "Oh, you'll see what
fun we'll have. In the morning father and the children dig clams in the
mud by the shore, an' we bake them, and--oh, there's thousands of things
to do."

"Once I went sailing on the bay," said McTeague. "It was in a tugboat;
we fished off the heads. I caught three codfishes."

"I'm afraid to go out on the bay," answered Trina, shaking her head,
"sailboats tip over so easy. A cousin of mine, Selina's brother, was
drowned one Decoration Day. They never found his body. Can you swim,
Doctor McTeague?"

"I used to at the mine."

"At the mine? Oh, yes, I remember, Marcus told me you were a miner
once."

"I was a car-boy; all the car-boys used to swim in the reservoir by the
ditch every Thursday evening. One of them was bit by a rattlesnake once
while he was dressing. He was a Frenchman, named Andrew. He swelled up
and began to twitch."

"Oh, how I hate snakes! They're so crawly and graceful--but, just the
same, I like to watch them. You know that drug store over in town that
has a showcase full of live ones?"

"We killed the rattler with a cart whip."

"How far do you think you could swim? Did you ever try? D'you think you
could swim a mile?"

"A mile? I don't know. I never tried. I guess I could."

"I can swim a little. Sometimes we all go out to the Crystal Baths."

"The Crystal Baths, huh? Can you swim across the tank?"

"Oh, I can swim all right as long as papa holds my chin up. Soon as
he takes his hand away, down I go. Don't you hate to get water in your
ears?"

"Bathing's good for you."

"If the water's too warm, it isn't. It weakens you."

Mr. Sieppe came running down the tracks, waving his cane.

"To one side," he shouted, motioning them off the track; "der drain
gomes." A local passenger train was just passing B Street station, some
quarter of a mile behind them. The party stood to one side to let it
pass. Marcus put a nickel and two crossed pins upon the rail, and waved
his hat to the passengers as the train roared past. The children shouted
shrilly. When the train was gone, they all rushed to see the nickel and
the crossed pins. The nickel had been jolted off, but the pins had been
flattened out so that they