road by alder screens. At one end
there was a shelving bottom, of clean sand, where the "little kids"
who couldn't swim sported in safety. Under the opposite bank the water
ran deep for diving. And in mid-stream the pool was so very deep that
nobody had ever been able to find bottom there. In the other holes,
you could hold your hands over your head and go down till your feet
touched, without wetting your fingers. But not the longest fish-line
had ever been long enough to plumb Sandy's depths. Indeed, it was
popularly believed that there was _no_ bottom in Sandy, and a mythical
horn pout, of gigantic proportions, was supposed to inhabit its dark,
watery abysses.

Old Hundred and I stood on the bridge and looked down on a little
pool. "I could jump across it now," he sighed. "But I wish it were a
warmer day. I'd go in, just the same."

There was a honk up the road, and a touring car jolted over the boards
behind us, with a load of veils and goggles. The dust sifted through
the bridge, and we heard it patter on the water below.

"I fancy there's more travel now," said I. "And the alder screen seems
to be gone. Perhaps we'd better not go in."

Old Hundred leaned pensively over the white rail--the sign of a State
highway; for the dusty old Turnpike was now converted into a gray
strip of macadam road, torn by the automobiles, with a trolley track
at one side.

"There's a lucky bug on the water," he said presently. "If we were in
now, we might catch him, and make our fortunes."

"And get our clothes tied up," said I.

"As I recall it, you were the prize beef chawer," he remarked. "I
never could see why you didn't go into vaudeville, in a Houdini act. I
used to soak the knots in your shirt and dry 'em, and soak 'em again;
but you always untied 'em, often without using your teeth, either."

"You couldn't, though," I grinned.

"Charlo beef,
The beef was tough,
Poor Old Hundred
Couldn't get enough!

"How many times have you gone home barefoot, with your stockings and
your undershirt, in a wet knot, tied to your fish-pole?"

"Not many," said he.

"What?" said I.

"It wasn't often that I wore stockings and an undershirt in swimming
season," he answered. "Don't you remember being made to soak your feet
in a tub on the back porch before going to bed, and going fast asleep
in the process?"

"If you put a horse hair in water, it will turn to a snake," I
replied, irrelevantly.

"Anybody knows that