"O, dear, Gid's such a great big boy, and I'm _only_ just eight," thought he, jolting up and down like a bag of meal on horseback. Well, it would be good fun, after all, to go in swimming,--splendid fun, when there was somebody to hold you up, and keep you from drowning. If you could forget that your mother had told you not to play with Gid Noonin! "If you get the string of that medal wet you'll catch it," said Gid. "Better take it off and put it in your pocket." "Just a-going to," said Willy. "D'you think I's a fool?" Well, wasn't it nice! The water feeling so ticklish all over you, and-- Why, no, it wasn't nice at all; it was just frightful! After two or three dives, Gid had snapped his fingers in his face, and gone off and left him. Willy couldn't swim any more than a fish-hook. Where _was_ Gid? "The water's up to my chin. Come, Gid, quick!" What would Seth and Stephen say if they knew how he was abused? No--his mother? No--Love, and Caleb, and Liddy? How they would feel! There wasn't any bottom to this brook, or if there ever had been it had dropped out. "O, Gid, I can't stand up." Gid was in plain sight now, on the bank, pretending to skip stones. Gid was like a Chinese juggler; he could make believe do one thing, while he was really doing another. "Quick! Quick! Quick! I shall dro--ow--own!" Gid took his own time; but as he swam slowly back to his trembling little playmate, he was "rolling a sweet morsel under his tongue," which tasted very much like a silver medal--with the string taken out. "What d'you go off for?" gasped Willy. "For fun, you outrageous little ninny!" mumbled Gid, tickling Willy under the arms. "I'm going to get you out, now, and dress you, and send you home to your mother." "Dress me, I guess!" "Well, you'd better scamper!" said Gid, hurriedly, as they got into their clothes. "Your mother'll have a fit about you." "My mother? No, she won't. She don't spect the codfish and mackerel till most supper-time. She said I might play, but she wasn't willing I should play with you, though, Gid Noonin," said little Willy, squeezing the water out of his hair. "But you did, you little scamp! Now run along home. I can't stop to talk. Got to saw wood." "Then what made you creep so awful slow when I called to you?" asked Willy, indignantly. "O, because I've got such a sore throat," wheezed Gideon. "Off with you! Scamper!" Upon that Gid took to his heels, and left Master Willy staring at him, and wondering what a sore throat had to do with swimming, and what made Gid in such a hurry all in a minute. "He's a queer fellow--Gid is! Can't spell worth a cent. Should think he'd be ashamed to see a little boy like me wear the medal. Glad I didn't wet it, for the color would have washed out of the string." With that Willy put his hand in his pocket. "Out here and show yourself, sir." This to the medal. "What! Why, what's this?" He felt in the other pocket. "Why! Why!"