He often had to
lie on his side in a shallow place, working the coal loose with his
pick--where the roof was so close he couldn't sit up straight....
* * * * *
"What shall we do to-day?" asked Phoebe of me, as we lay there, side by
side, "I say let's go swimming?"
"You and me together?" I demurred.
"In course!"
"And you a girl?"
"Can't I swim jest as well as you can?"
"Phoebe, git up, you lazy-bones," called Aunt Rachel, from the bottom of
the stairs.
"All right, Ma!"
"Johnnie, you git up, too!"
"Coming down right now, Aunt Rachel!"
"Hurry up, or your breakfast'll git cold ... the idea of you children
laying in bed like this ... what on earth are you doing up there,
talking and talking? I kin hear you buzzing away clear down here!"
I had been rapt in telling Phoebe how, when I grew to be a man, I was
going to become a great adventurer, traveller, explorer.
Phoebe sat up on the edge of the bed, lazily stretching for a moment, as
a pretty bird stretches its leg along its wing. Then, her slim, nubile
body outlined sharply in the brilliant day, she stood up, slipped off
her flannel nightgown with a natural, unaffected movement, and stood
naked before me.
* * * * *
It was a custom of mine to swing my feet as I ate; "just like a little
calf wags its tail when it sucks its mother's tit," my grandmother would
say.
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