Biltmore Oswald Read online

the thought ofthe conclusion of their meatless days. Fortunately for the Navy,however, I cheated them and saved myself in order to scrub many morehammocks and white clothes, an object to which I seem to havededicated my life.

  It all come about, as do most drowning parties, in quite an unexpectedmanner. For some reason it had been arranged that I should take a swimover at one of the emporiums at City Island, and, as I interposed noobjections, I accordingly departed with my faithful Mr. Fogertytumbling along at my heels. Since Mr. Fogerty involved me in troublethe other day by barking at the Jimmy-legs he has endeavored in allpossible ways to make up for his thoughtless irregularity. Forinstance, he met me this morning with an almost brand new shoe whichin some manner he had managed to pick up in his wanderings. It fitsperfectly, and if he only succeeds in finding the mate to it I shallprobably not look for the owner. As a further proof of his good willMr. Fogerty bit, or attempted to bite, a P.O. who spoke to meroughly regarding the picturesque way I was holding my gun.

  "Whose dog is that?" demanded the P.O.

  Silence in the ranks. Mr. Fogerty looked defiantly at him for a momentand then trotted deliberately over and sat down upon my foot.

  "Oh, so he belongs to you!" continued the P.O. in a threatening voice.

  "No, sir," I faltered; "you see, it isn't that way at all. I belong toMr. Fogerty."

  "Who in--who in--who is Mr. Fogerty?" shouted the P.O. "And howin--how in--how did _he_ happen to get into the conversation?"

  "Why, this is Mr. Fogerty," I replied; "this dog here, sitting on myfoot."

  "Oh, is that so?" jeered the P.O., a man noted for his quick retorts."Well, you take your silly looking dog away from here and secure himin some safe place. He ain't no fit associate for our camp dogs. And,furthermore," he added, "the next time Mr. Fogerty attempts to bite meI'm going to put you on report--savez?"

  Mr. Fogerty is almost as much of a comfort in camp as mother.

  Well, that's another something else again and has nothing to do withmy swim and approximate drowning at City Island. Swimming has alwaysbeen one of my strong points, and I have taken in the past no littlepride in my appearance, not only in a bathing outfit, but also in thewater. However, the suit they provided me with on this occasion didnot show me up in a very alluring light. It was quite large andevidently built according to a model of the early Victorian Era. I wasswathed in yards of cloth much in the same manner as is a very youngchild. It delighted Mr. Fogerty, who expressed his admiration byattaching himself to the lower half of my attire and remaining thereuntil I had waded through several colonies of barnacles far out intothe bay. Bidding farewell to Mr. Fogerty at this point, I gave myselfover to the joy of the moment and went wallowing along, giving asurprising imitation of the famous Australian crawl. Far in thedistance I sighted an island, to which I decided to swim. This was avery poor decision, indeed, because long before I had reached thespot I was in a sinking condition owing to the great heaviness of mysuit and a tremendous slacking down of lung power. It was too late toretreat to the shore; the island was the nearest point, and thatwasn't near. On I gasped, my mind teeming with cheerless thoughts ofthe ocean's bed waiting to receive me. Just as I was about to shakehands with myself for the last time I cleared the water from my eyesand discovered that the island though still distant was not altogetherimpossible. Therewith I discarded the top part of my suit and struckout once more. The island was now almost within my grasp. Life seemedto be not such a lost cause after all. Then suddenly, quite clearly,just as I was about to pull myself up on the shore, I saw a womanstanding on the bank and heard her shouting in a very conventionalvoice:

  "Private property! Private property!"

  I sank. This was too much. As I came up for the first count, and justbefore I sank back beneath the blue, I had time to hear her repeat:

  "Private property! Please keep off!"

  I went down very quickly this time and very far. When I arose I saw asthough in a dream another woman standing by the first one andseemingly arguing with her.

  "He's drowning!" she said.

  "I'm sure I can't help that!" the other one answered. And then in aloud, imperious voice:

  "Private property! No visitors allowed!"

  The water closed over my head and stilled her hateful voice.

  "No," she was saying as I came up for the third time; "I can't do it.If I make an exception of one I must make an exception of all."

  Although I hated to be rude about it, having always disliked forcingmyself upon people, I decided on my fourth trip down that unless Iwanted to be a dead sailor I had better be taking steps. It was almosttoo late. There wasn't enough wind left in me to fatten a small sizedbubble.

  "There he is again!" she cried in a petulant voice as I once moreappeared. "Why doesn't he go away?"

  "He's just about to--for good!" said the other lady. With a pitifulyap I struck out feebly in the general direction of the shore. Itwouldn't work. My arms refused to move. Then quite suddenly anddeliriously I felt two soft, cool arms enfold me, and my head sankback on a delicately unholstered shoulder. Somehow it reminded me ofthe old days.

  "Home, James," I murmured, as I was slowly towed to shore. Just beforeclosing my eyes I caught a fleeting glimpse of a young lady clad inone of the one-piecest one-piece bathing suits I had ever seen. Shewas bending over me sympathetically.

  "Private property!" cried my tormentor, shaking a finger at me. "Whata pity!" I thought as I closed my eyes and drifted off into sweetdreams in which Mr. Fogerty, my beautiful rescuer, and myself weredancing hand-and-hand on the parade ground to the music of the massedband, much to the edification of the entire station assembled inreview formation.

  Presently I awoke to the hateful strains of this old hard-shell'svoice:

  "See what you've done!" she was saying to the young girl. "You'vebrought in a half naked man, and now that he has seen you in a muchworse condition than he is, we'll have ten thousand sailors swimmingout to this island in one continuous swarm."

  "Oh, won't that be fun!" cried the girl. And from that time on, inspite of the objections of her mother, we were fast friends.

  When I returned to shore it was in a rowboat with this fair youngcreature. The faithful Fogerty was waiting on the beach for me, where,it later developed, he had been sleeping quite comfortably on anunknown woman's high powered sport hat, as is only reasonable.

  _July 2nd._ Mother got in again. There seems to be no practical way ofkeeping her out. This time she came breezing in with a friend fromEast Aurora, a large, elderly woman of about one hundred and tensummers and an equal number of very hard winters. The first thingmother said was to the effect that she was going to see what she coulddo about getting me a rating. She did. The very first officer she sawshe sailed up to and buttonholed much to my horror.

  "Why can't my boy Oswald have a pretty little eagle on his arm, suchas I see so many of the young men up here wearing about the camp?"

  The abruptness of this question left the officer momentarily stunned,but I will say for him that he rallied quickly and returned aremarkably diplomatic reply to the effect that the pretty littleeagle, although pleasing to gaze upon, was not primarily intended tobe so much of a decoration as means of identification, and thatcertain small qualifications were required, as a rule, before one waspermitted to wear one of the emblems in question; qualifications, hehastened to add, which he had not the slightest doubt that I failed topossess if I was the true son of my mother, but which, owing to fateand circumstances, I had probably been unable to exercise. Whereuponhe bid her a very courteous good-day, returned my salute, and passedon, but not before the very old lady accompanying my mother salutedalso, raising her hand to her funny bit of a bonnet with unnecessarysnappiness and snickering in a senile manner. This last episode upsetme completely, but the old lady was irrepressible. From that time onshe punctuated her progress through the camp with exaggerated salutesto all the officers she encountered on the way. This, of course, wasquite a startling and undignified performance for o
ne of her years,very embarrassing to me, as well as mystifying to the officers, whohardly knew whether to hurl me into the brig as vicarious atonement orto rebuke the flighty old creature, on the grounds of undue levity.Most of them passed by, however, with averted eyes and adiscountenanced expression, feeling, I am sure, that I had put her upto it. Mother thought it quite amusing, and enjoyed my discomfiturehugely. Then for no particular reason she began to garnish herconversation with inappropriate seagoing expressions, such as "Pipedown," "Hit the deck," "Avast," and "Hello, Buddy!" Where she everpicked up all this nonsense I am at a loss to discover, but shecontinued to pull it to the bitter end.

  "Hello, Buddy!" was the way