u all the lessons you need. Watch their arms and legs and see how
smoothly they kick themselves along and dive and come up. When you
want to dive, keep your arms by your side or over your head, and kick,
and when you want to come up, let your legs drag and paddle with your
hands."

We found a little basin among the rushes at the south end of the lake,
about waist-deep and a rod or two wide, shaped like a sunfish's nest.
Here we kicked and plashed for many a lesson, faithfully trying to
imitate frogs; but the smooth, comfortable sliding gait of our
amphibious teachers seemed hopelessly hard to learn. When we tried to
kick frog-fashion, down went our heads as if weighted with lead the
moment our feet left the ground. One day it occurred to me to hold my
breath as long as I could and let my head sink as far as it liked
without paying any attention to it, and try to swim under the water
instead of on the surface. This method was a great success, for at the
very first trial I managed to cross the basin without touching bottom,
and soon learned the use of my limbs. Then, of course, swimming with
my head above water soon became so easy that it seemed perfectly
natural. David tried the plan with the same success. Then we began to
count the number of times that we could swim around the basin without
stopping to rest, and after twenty or thirty rounds failed to tire us,
we proudly thought that a little more practice would make us about as
amphibious as frogs.

On the fourth of July of this swimming year one of the Lawson boys
came to visit us, and we went down to the lake to spend the great warm
day with the fishes and ducks and turtles. After gliding about on the
smooth mirror water, telling stories and enjoying the company of the
happy creatures about us, we rowed to our bathing-pool, and David and
I went in for a swim, while our companion fished from the boat a
little way out beyond the rushes. After a few turns in the pool, it
occurred to me that it was now about time to try deep water. Swimming
through the thick growth of rushes and lilies was somewhat dangerous,
especially for a beginner, because one's arms and legs might be
entangled among the long, limber stems; nevertheless I ventured and
struck out boldly enough for the boat, where the water was twenty or
thirty feet deep. When I reached the end of the little skiff I raised
my right hand to take hold of it to surprise Lawson, whose back was
toward me and who was not a