314 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
shoals where beginners may learn, and a deep hole for the 
skillful to plunge in, and a clean bank on which to come out 
and dress. The only 
necessary artificial 
equipment is a spring 
board, to aidin making 
spectacular plunges. 
And if it have, slop- 
ing into the water, a soft clay bank down which bare fcet 
may slide, or a black sticky mud, suitable for bodily 
decorations, it is especially well endowed by nature. 
Where else on earth is there so simple an equipment capable 
of fostering so much unalloyed pleasure, or of so effectively 
putting “‘every care beyond recall?” 
There is so much to learn at the swimming hole! Floating, 
and diving, and ducking, and staying under, and springbroad 
plunges, and swimming in all positions and with all the 
strokes; and every new feat mastered and well and publicly 
performed, adds so to one’s standing and respectability and 
influence in the swimming-hole community—it must be 
real education! 
Fic. 138. Poor modern alternatives. 
Fic. 139. ‘‘Every care beyond recall" 
