Chapter 7

SWIMMING

Old dog Spot liked boys. Somehow they always managed to have a lively time; and usually they seemed glad to have him join them in their sports.

He never could understand why Johnnie Green and the neighbors' boys didn't want him to play baseball with them. Spot loved to chase a ball. And sometimes when he was watching a game and somebody hit a slow grounder he would rush out and grab the ball and run with it.

Then all the boys would run after him and try to catch him. That always pleased Spot mightily. And the longer the chase lasted the happier he was. But it was different with the boys. The harder they had to run after Spot before they got the ball away from him the more out of patience they became.

Whenever Spot took part in a ball game like that Johnnie Green usually put an end to his fun, for the time being, by tying him to something or other—perhaps a fence or a tree. But even that was better—so Spot thought—than being sent home in disgrace.

Luckily there were other sports in which Spot could romp with the boys as much as he pleased, without anybody's objecting. Nutting in the woods in the fall; skating on the mill pond or coasting down the long hill past Farmer Green's house in the winter; berrying in the summer—and swimming! Those were only a few of the jolly times that Spot and the boys enjoyed together.

Perhaps, of them all, both Spot and the boys liked swimming the most. As for Spot, he didn't care where he swam, so long as the water was wet. Broad Brook, Swift River, Black Creek, or the mill pond—any one of those places suited him as well as another. The boys, however, preferred the mill pond. It was deep enough, by the dam, to suit the best swimmers; and it was shallow enough at the upper end for those that were just learning.

All the boys thought it great fun when a wagon clattered over the bridge, which crossed right above the dam. Then they ducked into the water, with only their heads out, and shouted more or less politely at whoever was passing.

At such times Spot barked, because that seemed to him the gentlemanly thing to do. But he never could see any sense in jumping into the water if he happened to be out on the bank when a wagon came along.

The boys threw sticks about the pond for Spot to fetch back to them. They raced with him. They upset him when he was sunning himself on the big rock near the dam, and they laughed to see the splash he made when he struck the water.

No matter what tricks the boys played on him, Spot never lost his temper. He took everything good-naturedly. And one day, when Johnnie Green and his friends were swimming in the mill pond he even took a bundle of clothes from beneath a big hickory on the bank. Yes! Spot caught up somebody's clothes in his mouth and started along the road with them.

He was surprised to hear a terrible outcry from the water.