Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/186

 The sick boy took his "duck" with a gasp, recovered his balance, and struck out for mid-stream with that loose-jointed vigor peculiar to the beginner.

"Is 'nt it great!" he gasped, as he made his way through the buoyant and limpid coolness, as near to the glory of flying as mortals are allowed to come. He clambered up on the old black-walnut root in the middle of the river, and there sunned himself contentedly, with his thin young legs swaying gently back and forth in the stream.

There Lonely whiled the time away giving exhibitions of the many fashions of water-travel. He showed Lionel Clarence the awkward and archaic "cow-fashion," and then the methodical, spatty, business-like overhand stroke that went by the name of "sailor-fashion," then he showed what "steamboat-fashion" meant, lying well out on the top of the water, and churning it foamy with his quick heel-strokes. Then he "laid his hair," first on one side, then on the other, then exactly in the middle.

Whereupon the sick boy said the sun was too hot for him, and slipped down into the