"Fivers" Versus "Sixers" At Parkhurst
by
“I tell you what it is, you fellows, I shall learn to swim!” The speaker was Bobby Jobson, a hero of some thirteen summers, who, in company with four of us, his schoolfellows, sat on the bank of the Colven, under some willows, dabbling his shins in the clear water of the river.
The summer had been tremendously hot. Cricket was out of the question, and boating equally uninviting. The playground had been left deserted to bake and scorch under the fierce sun, and the swings and poles in the gymnasium had blistered and cracked in solitude. The only place where life was endurable was down by the river, and even there it was far too hot to do anything but sit and dabble our feet under the shelter of the trees, and think of icebergs!
A few of the fellows, to our unbounded envy, bathed. They could swim, we could not; and if any rule at Parkhurst was strict, it was the rule which forbade any boy who could not swim to bathe in the river, except with special leave and under the care of a master. And so, like so many small editions of Tantalus, we sat on the bank and kicked our heels in the water, and bemoaned the fate which had brought us into the world without web-feet.
Young donkeys that we were! The idea of learning to swim had never occurred to any of us till Bobby Jobson, in a happy moment, gave birth to the idea in his ejaculation, “I tell you what it is, you fellows, I shall learn to swim!”
“How?” I inquired.
“How?” said Jobson; “why, you know, how does every body learn?” and then he was polite enough to call me a duffer.
“I’ll tell you the way,” said Ralley, one of our set. “Lie across a desk on your stomach, two or three hours every day, and kick out with your arms and legs.”
“Corks and bladders,” mildly suggested some one else.
“Get old Blades,” (that was the boatman) “to tie a rope round your middle and chuck you into the Giant’s Pool,” kindly proposed another.
“Just tumble in where you are,” said Ralley, “and see if it doesn’t come naturally.”
“Ugh!” said Jobson, with a grimace, giving a sidekick in the water in the direction of the last speaker. “I’m not sure that that dodge would pay.”
While he spoke, to our unbounded horror, the bank on which he and his next neighbour were sitting suddenly gave way, and next moment, with a shout and a splash, our two comrades were floundering helplessly in five feet of water!
Help, happily, was at hand, or there is no saying what might have been the end of the adventure. We did all we could by reaching out our hands and throwing them our jackets to help them, while, with our shouts, we summoned more effective aid. Old Blades, who providentially happened to be passing, was with us in less than a minute, and fished out the two poor half-drowned boys, scarcely a moment before they needed it. They were more frightened, I fancy, than damaged; anyhow, we smuggled them home, dripping as they were, and helped them to bed; and when, next morning, they turned up as usual, nothing the worse for their first swimming lesson, we were, as you may imagine, infinitely relieved.
This little adventure was the origin of the Parkhurst Swimming Club. The doctor, on hearing of the affair, took the proper course; and, instead of forbidding us the river, he secured the services of one or two instructors, and had us all taught the art of swimming. For three months, every day of the week, the School Creek was full of sputtering, choking youngsters. Every new boy was hunted down to the river in turn, and by the end of the year there was hardly a boy at Parkhurst who could not keep his chin up in deep waters.