Judge — November 11, 1911 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6sQUD-DIE!"” Mother leaned over the machine and called out the win- dow. “Take your trunks. If you will drown yourself, at least do it decently.”” “Yes'’m,’’ said Bud. Of course he wasn’t going to wear trunks. He would just leave them un- der a tree with his regular clothes while he was swimming. When he was dressed again, he would dip them into the creek. Then he'd wrap the trunks in the towel and it would get as sopping as if he’d wiped on it. Any one knows—but mother—that you can’t stop to wipe or the boys'll chawbeef your clothes. That means tie all the legs and arms into hard knots, so you nearly freeze before you can get them undone. Itdidn’t matter, either, what the boys wore or didn’t wear until just this fall, when Miss Sprowles started the ‘Bright Eyes’’ club, to ‘‘study our feathered brothers.’’ After that, the more harm- less a clump of bushes looked, the more you could be sure it was full of the eyes and cameras of dames who were ‘‘hunt- ing without a gun.’? They got a few shocks and made a silly fuss, and one day the boys found a sign on the big willow: BATHERS Will Wear Suitable Garments Or Suffer the PENALTY OF THE LAW! Bud said, Pooh, if he had to wear “‘garments,"’ he’d go down to the river and try the new bathhouse. Every one thought the new bathhouse was great but the boys who went bath- ing there. You see, it didn’t open till nine, and long before that there was al- ways a mob waiting at the door. There weren’t any lockers, just one big room, and you left your clothes in a heap where you undressed. There was one long roller-towel for the boys to wipe on if they were fussy. They mostly weren't, So this Saturday morning all the fel- lows peeled off their clothes in the mid- dle of the big room and wiggled into their suits. Bud tore down the pier first and dived into the river. He came up spitting and snorting, and hollered to the others who were shivering on the dock, * * * Trunks and the Boy. By ETHEL CHAPMAN HARING. “Aw, c-come on, y’ old p-pussycats! It’s fine and w-warm!"" “Say it 'thout chattering and we’ll b'lieve you!’’ Ned hollered back. He wrapped his arms around his legs and said he’d rather be dry-cold than wet- cold any day. But at last they pushed each other off, yelling like Indians when they struck the icy wi ter. Bud was game, but deep water never warms up like the creek; in fifteen minutes he was so blue and trembly he could hardly crawl up the ladder to the dock. “C-cracky! That puts a crimp in you!’’ he said to Ned. ‘‘Sandy Bottom beats this to Ballyhack.’* “You bet!’ said Ned. ‘‘Let’s mosey in, fellers!"’ And they scrambled up “ the ladder and raced to the bathhouse, giving each other splashy spanks all the way. The door was locked. They yelled and pounded, but nobody came. A newsie who had a part of an old pair of pants held up by half an old pair of suspenders called to them to cheese it or the cop’d grab 'em. “But what's eatin’ the doorkeep?”’ Bud called back. “‘Y’ can’t get in ’cep’ when th’ other fellers gets in at ten o'clock. That's so you can’t swipe any one else’s jeans.” “Ten o'clock!’ they all hollered— Bud told me. ‘We'll be cold stiffs by that time!’" “Chase yerselves’n’ you won’t,’’ said the newsie. The fellows started to go for him, but he didn’t seem to mean anything, so instead of pounding him they had a war dance. Bud made up the song. “Sandy Bottom’s the place for us, No towels or trunks or any such fuss; The water's warm and the water’s low Doorkeep, kind doorkeep, oh, let us go He snitched the last line from the Fourth Reader—‘*‘Lady, kind lady, oh, let me go!’’—you know. They sang it real loud for half an hour, and you could have heard them half a mile. Maybe that’s why what happened happened. Then the doors opened and everybody made a break for his clothes. All the fellows lost something in the rough- house. Bud had to come home with one stocking. But he didn’t mind; it was a good excuse to go barefoot. Mother said it was disgusting that there should be only one towel for all s eR * *% those boys—it must have been drenched, too. But Bud told her that the towel was the only dry thing in the bathhouse when the boys got through. She wrin- kled her nose the way you do when you have to take castor oil. “Horrors! How does a boy ever live to grow up!"” Dad laughed and guessed there were special by-laws to the constitution for the benefit of boys. Of course the boys all went to Sandy Bottom that very afternoon. .Bud was the only one who took bathing trunks— mother made him—and he hung them over the sign about ‘‘Suitable Gar- ments.’’ There were packs of willow clumps along the banks, anyway. The water was great after the icy river. It spreads out so thin that the sun warms it up ina jiffy, all but the deep black hole at the end of the button- ball log where you dive. Well, they were just telling each other how great it was, when Bud yelled, “The cop!’” and slid into the pool. The other boys struck out downstream; but when they saw the cop walking out on the log with all their pants and Bud's trunks over his arm, they knew it wasn’t any use. They all came in, and when they’d told their names the police- man handed over their pants. There was one pair of pants and the trunks left over. The cop looked queer. “*Where’s that tow-headed chap?"’ he asked. “*Bud—Bud Kent."’ ‘‘I seen him go down in the diving pool.’’ ‘‘So’d I, so'd I,’’ said the fellows, scared. Ned peeled off his clothes again and dived into the hole. When he came up again he called, ‘‘He ain’t here,’”’ and swam ashore, slow, looking all around. “Taken to the woods, likely,”’ said the copper. ‘Well, he won’t get far with- out these,’’ and he folded up Bud's pants and trunks. ‘‘Hurry up, you! What's the matter?’’ he bawled to Ned. “Crawfish on my toe,’’ Ned hollered back. He was bending down beside the button-ball log, but he stood up again, with his face all red, and waded ashore. After he'd dressed, they all had to go to the police station and have their names written in a book and get told a lot of things they knew weren’t so. Then every one went home but Ned. He went back to Sandy Bottom, Bud didn’t get home to supper, and comicbooks.com