Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/86

 in bond until that blue-skinned and shivering youth timidly essayed "dog-fashion," spluttering, moaning, shrieking, making weird faces, rolling his eyes, forlornly calling for his mother, and finally skimming naked up the bank and across two hay-fields, once the disgusted Lonely had released him.

His instructor tried to lure him back again by airily doing "the over-stroke," by showing him how luxurious it was to float, by treading water, by triumphantly "bringing up bottom" out in the middle of the river, and even diving backwards off the sycamore roots. Lionel began to cry with the cold, however, and at last Lonely relented. But only for that afternoon. For sternly and rigorously the lessons were repeated, until the Preacher's son proudly eschewed "dog-fashion" and caught the knack of the more honored "frog-motion," and even attempted a timid dive or two.

From that day on, Mrs. Sampson, without knowing it, was the mother of two sons: one, Lionel Clarence Sampson, sickly, frail, timorous, forever having headaches, and forever getting pains in the stomach just before