When we tried to
kick frog-fashion, down went our heads as if weighted with lead the
moment our feet left the ground. One day it occurred to me to hold my
breath as long as I could and let my head sink as far as it liked
without paying any attention to it, and try to swim under the water
instead of on the surface. This method was a great success, for at the
very first trial I managed to cross the basin without touching bottom,
and soon learned the use of my limbs. Then, of course, swimming with
my head above water soon became so easy that it seemed perfectly
natural. David tried the plan with the same success. Then we began to
count the number of times that we could swim around the basin without
stopping to rest, and after twenty or thirty rounds failed to tire us,
we proudly thought that a little more practice would make us about as
amphibious as frogs.
On the fourth of July of this swimming year one of the Lawson boys
came to visit us, and we went down to the lake to spend the great warm
day with the fishes and ducks and turtles.
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