Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/360

 his anatomy; with another, zebra-like stripes from head to foot; with another, a close-grained effect such as one often sees on quartered oak furniture; with still another a copious sprinkling of French knots and polka-dots.

Back-aches and water-blisters, disappointments and humiliations, defeats and degradations,—all were forgotten under the magic spell of that soothing and caressing blue clay, and that dissolving, rejuvenating, lukewarm, yellow-tinted water of the sun-steeped swimming-hole. Cæsar took no thought of his crown; Antony had discovered something sweeter than ambition; Ponce de Leon had found something finer than Mexican gold!—the very fountain of youth and joy itself!

When tired of disporting themselves, porpoise-like, under and through and over the water, the eleven young barbarians clambered up the river-bank, to a warm and dusty sand-wallow, soaking in the gentle heat, at peace with themselves and all the world.

There, with twitching toes and blinking eyes, gazing lazily up into the great blue vault above them, they fell into a dreamy and disjointed argument as to just where Heaven was.