“No, Mr. Davis. I don’t think I’d better. He might get that dirty-mind idea again. Anyway, with the boys it wouldn’t be the same as though they were friends of mine like Mr. Joyce. Anyway I don’t understand Mademoiselle de Maupin well enough to explain it and I wouldn’t have the same authority explaining it as when I had Mr. Joyce’s friendship to back me up.”
“I’d like to have heard that explanation,” Roger said.
“Shucks, Mr. Davis. It was very rudimentary. It wouldn’t have interested you. You understand that part perfectly well, don’t you?”
“Pretty well.”
“I wish we would have known Balzac and Gautier, though, as friends the way we knew Mr. Joyce.”
“So do I,” said Thomas Hudson.
“We knew some good writers, though, didn’t we?”
“We certainly did,” Thomas Hudson said. It was pleasant and hot on the sand and he felt lazy after working and happy, too. It made him very happy to hear the boys talk.
“Let’s go in and swim and then have lunch,” Roger said. “It’s getting hot.”
Thomas Hudson watched them. Swimming slowly, the four of them swam out in the green water, their bodies making shadows over the clear white sand, bodies forging along, shadows projected on the sand by the slight angle of the sun, the brown arms lifting and pushing forward, the hands slicing in, taking hold of the water and pulling it back, legs beating along steadily, heads turning for air, breathing easily and smoothly. Thomas Hudson stood there and watched them swimming out with the wind and he was very fond of the four of them. He thought he ought to paint them swimming, although it would be very difficult. He would try it, though, during the summer.
He was too lazy to swim although he knew he should and finally he walked out feeling the breeze-cooled water fresh and cool on his sun-warmed legs, feeling it cool around his crotch and then, slipping forward into the ocean river, he swam out to meet them as they came in. With his head on the same level theirs were on, it was a different picture, now, changed too because they were swimming against the breeze coming in and the chop was bothering both Andrew and David, who were swimming raggedly. The illusion of them being four sea animals was gone. They had gone out so smoothly and handsomely but now the two younger boys were having difficulty against the wind and the sea. It was not real difficulty. It was just enough to take away any illusion of being at home in the water as they had looked going out. They made two different pictures and perhaps the second was the better one. The five swimmers came out on the beach and walked up to the house.
“That’s why I like it better underwater,” David said. “You don’t have to worry about breathing.”
“Why don’t you goggle-fish with papa and Tommy this aft,” Andrew said to him. “I’ll stay ashore with Mr. Davis.”
“Don’t you want to go, Mr. Davis?”
“I might stay ashore.”
“Don’t stay in on account of me,” Andrew said. “I’ve got plenty to do. I just thought maybe you were staying in.”
“I think I’ll stay in,” Roger said. “I may lie around and read.”
“Don’t let him maneuver you, Mr. Davis. Don’t let him charm you.”
“I feel like staying in,” Roger said.
They were up on the porch now and everyone had changed to dry shorts. Joseph had brought out a bowl of conch salad. All the boys were eating it, and young Tom was drinking a bottle of beer. Thomas Hudson was sitting back in a chair and Roger was standing with the shaker.
“I get sleepy after lunch,” he said.
“Well, we’ll miss you,” young Tom said. “I’d just as soon stay in, too.”
“Come on, you stay in, too, Tom,” Andrew said. “Let Papa and David go.”
“I won’t catch you,” young Tom told him.
“I don’t want you to catch me. There’s a Negro boy that will catch me.”
“What do you want to be a pitcher for, anyway?” Tommy said. “You’ll never be big enough.”
“I’ll be as big as Dick Rudolph and Dick Kerr.”