Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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Willie sent out a low whistle of warning. Eyes from all parts of the pond swept the opening down stream. Girls coming—a lot of them, too many to count. The boys ducked. Henry, who chanced to be in the top of a small elm tree ready for a dive, found the bottom of the pond with his proboscis in no time. One crafty little fellow, well plastered with mud, was caught wholly unawares, taking his siesta on the bank, cut off from the pond. As one having lost all sense of decency, he darted this way and that way in front of the girls—and then, like an ostrich, hid his head in the low forks of a tree, with back exposed to company. Well now, maybe it is that the ostrich, when he sticks his head in the sand, hopes that he might be taken for another bird. Shall I name this ostrich imitator? Well—maybe later.

“Let them come!” yelled Henry Callahan, in a braggadocio way. “Who cares! We used to swim with the Peters girls—and that didn’t kill us.”

“Yeah,” drawled Timothy Doble, in his usual draggy voice, “but remember, we had our pants on then—and that made a lot of difference.”