We often swim here, especially during the last of June and the whole of July. Then the water is perfect. Very cold the first time in, but less and less cold after that as the sun warms the water and the swimmers get brown and hardened. The morning swims are nice because they involve lunch at the boathouse unless it is raining or the mosquitoes and flies and bees get too tough.

 

The first ones down to the lake are the kids. They have spent about an hour asking to get into their swimming suits and being told no. Suddenly it is time to tell them yes, and by the time the teller has gone into his room, located his suit and started to get into it, the kids are in their swim togs and halfway down the path. So we yell at the kids to wait and they line up at the “line” which they know they must never pass alone and we get milk and the making of sandwiches into a basket. Dark glasses, cigarettes and lighters, magazines and the lunch laden us so that we are pretty slow and the kids gallop around the line and on down to the boathouse with constant shrieks from us to WAIT.

 

While “waiting’ they get out their inner tubes from the boathouse and start quarreling about who gets which one first and how long he can have it. By the time Margot and I stagger down the steps, two of the kids are all poised with tubes around them and everything is settled.

 

In they go with a splash, Margie’s little yellow suit right along with the rest. Sun and bright suits and splashing waves and the far sound of boat motors and the heavy flight of the curious heron – this is the swim. Punctuating it are shouts of “Watch, Mommy!” “Lookit!” “Look what I can do!” ”I get the tube next!” and “I want the red tube!”

 

Oz comes wandering down, looking as though he has been chopping wood. He probably has. He has no suit on for swimming º rather, a pair of trousers torn off at the knee. He looks like a sort of Robin Hood, only larger and not so green. His trousers are brownish gray or else just dirty and his shirt is a pale plaid. He thinks maybe he will swim just as he is.

 

He reconsiders and disappears into the boathouse, emerging a moment later in somebody’s suit, probably Ronnie’s. He hangs around with Margot and me behind our dark glasses in the sun, watching the kids and looking ruefully at the shining waves. “Cold, Merrily?”

 

“No, warm!” says Merrily, ignoring her goose pimples. “Real warm today,” say all the kids, flailing their arms and legs. Margie is out beyond the dock in the black inner tube.

 

“Come back here, Margie!” Margot yells. Margie pays no attention or doesn’t hear inside her little cap.

 

We all yell. She looks up at us and grins. Oz runs off the dock and dives in an unpracticed sort of way.

 

“See what my Dad can do?” says Al. “Lookit my Dad!” His dad is stroking his way out from the dock quickly in a tight manner suggesting that if he stops he will freeze into a swimming position. He lets out a woodchopper yell. Margot is in the water up to her knees and swishing it thoughtfully up onto her thighs but no further, commanding Margie to come in at least even with the dock. Margie is squirming on the tube, kicking and getting it to turn.

 

Nancy is doing a sort of glorified dog paddle easily and gracefully out past the dock and Merrily is dripping on the dock with the black inner tube around her waist, looking into the water, poised to jump and waiting for courage. I am still behind my sunglasses, leafing a magazine and watching them all.

 

Al says, “Lookit!” and plunges off the dock on the red inner tube, flat on his stomach. I grunt for him but he comes up with an expression on his face that he has just stuck his head in the lion’s mouth and it was nice in there. Childhood is a wonderful thing, I reason to myself.

 

Margot is well out into the lake now, doing a nice crawl, her brown back gleaming. She floats and swims and floats again and shouts that it is wonderful. Oz agrees and comes in to play with the kids for a while, then flops on the dock. He rises and disappears into the boathouse and emerges in his Robin Hood suit.

 

I holler that lunch is ready and go for the basket where it rests in the shade. Everyone starts to come out of the water and flop down on the big spread-out Turkish bathing towels. Margot and I both shout toward the house for Gran and Gramps and we hear a screen door slam up there.

 

They appear as their sandwiches are made and each take a glass of milk like everyone else. With a sort of sparse conversation, we eat all the sandwiches. Looking at the sky, the clouds, the pines, the sun, the weather in general, each of us in his own way thanking God, whether we knew it or not. We swat a fly or two and we have our after-lunch cigarettes.

 

The exodus to the cabin begins. Nancy disappears first, then Margot and I collar Al and Merrily. Margie refuses to go with emphasis, but goes after all.

 

Up the steps, the path with the little stones, the porch steps, across the big screened porch, the living room, down the long hallway to the bathroom. Then upstairs to the warm attic rooms where the children sleep.

 

Silence. A back porch railing decorated with dripping bathing suits and a neglected and deserted picnic basket on the kitchen sink and a two-hour snooze in the offering.

 

We’ve had out morning swim.