The wash-tub fellows will have to be left out of it entirely. It
was an inferior, low-grade Eden they had anyhow, and if they lost it,
why, they 're not out very much that I can see. And I rather pity
the boys that lived by the sea. They had a good time in their way,
I suppose, with sailboats and things, but the ocean is a poor excuse
for a swimming-hole. They say salt-water is easier to swim in; kind
of bears you up more. Maybe so, but I never could see it; and even
so, if it does, that slight advantage is more than made up for by
the manifold disadvantages entailed. First place, there's the tide
to figure on. If it was high tide last Wednesday at half-past ten
in the morning, what time will it be high tide today? A boy can't
always go when he wants to, and it is no fun to trudge away down to
the beach only to find half a mile of soft, gawmy mud between him
and the water. And he can't go in wherever it is deep enough and
nobody lives near. People own the beach away out under water, and
where he is allowed to go in may be a perfect submarine jungle of
eel-grass or bottomed with millions of razor-edged barnacles that
rip the soles of his feet into bleeding rags. Then, too, when one
swims, more or less water gets into one's nose and mouth. River-water
may not be exactly what a fastidious person would choose to drink
habitually, but there is this in its favor as compared with sea-water:
it will stay down after it is swallowed; also, it doesn't gum up your
hair; also, if you want to take a cake of soap with you, all you have
to look out for is that you don't lose the soap.
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