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“It can’t be Myrtie!” I heard Old Hundred mutter, as he hastened on.

Sandy was almost the most wonderful spot in the world. It was, as most swimming holes are, on the down-stream side of a bridge. The little river widened out, on its way through the meadows, here and there into swimming holes of greater or less desirability. There was Lob’s Pond, by the mill, and Deep Pool, and Musk Rat, and Little Sandy. But Sandy was the best of them all. It was shaded on one side by great trees, and the banks were hidden from the 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,” said Old Hundred. “If you toss a fish back in the water before you’re done fishing, you won’t get any more bites, because he’ll go tell all the other fish. Bet yer I can swim farther under the water ‘n you can. Come on, it isn’t very cold.”

I looked hesitantly at the pool.

“Stump yer!” he taunted.

I started for the bank. But just then the trolley wire, which we had quite forgotten, began to buzz. We paused. Up the pike came the car. It stopped just short of the bridge, by a cross-road, and an old man alighted. Then it moved on, shaking more dust down upon the brown water. The old man regarded us a moment, and instead of turning up the cross-road, came over to us.