But I
might find some comfort in it yet if I coin only get that natty
little spat on the water when I lunge forward swimming overhand.
We used to think the Old Swimming-hole was a bully place, but I
know better now. The sycamore leaned well out over the water, and
there was a trapeze on the branch that grew parallel with the shore,
but the water near it was never deep enough to dive into. And that
is another occasion of humiliation. I can't dive worth a cent.
When I go down to the slip behind Fulton Market - they sell fish at
Fulton Market; just follow your nose and you can't miss it - and
see the rows of little white monkeys doing nothing but diving, I
realize that the Old Swimming-hole with all its beauties, its green
leafiness, its clean, long grass to lie upon while drying in the
sun, or to pull out and bite off the tender, chrome-yellow ends,
was but a provincial, country-fake affair. There were no watermelon
rinds there, no broken berry-baskets, no orange peel, no nothing.
All the fish in it were just common live ones. And there was no
diving. But at the real, proper city swimming-place all the little
white monkeys can dive. Each is gibbering and shrieking: "Hey,
Chim-meel Chimmee! Hey, Chim-mee! Chimmee! Hey, CHIM-MEEEE!
How'ss t 'iss?" crossing himself and tipping over head first,
coming up so as to "lay his hair," giving a shaking snort to clear
his nose and mouth of water, regaining the ladder with three
overhand strokes (every one of them with that natty little spat
that I can't get), climbing up to the string-piece and running for
Chimmy, red-eyed, shivering, and dripping, to ask: "How wass Cat?"
And I can't dive for a cent - that is, I can't dive from a great
elevation.
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