He looked awfully thin and little in his bathing suit and whenever he climbed up to the deck of the house-boat the wet cloth stuck tight to him and made him look, oh, I don't know, kind of like a marsh rat, as you may say.

That's what he always said people called him, a _swamp rat_, and I guess he was even kind of proud of it.
One sure thing, he was game.

And he was just the same in learning to swim as he was in everything else; he got all excited and wanted to go too fast.

As soon as he got the hang of it and could manage a few strokes, _good night_, he wanted to swim across the river.

He started right off before the fellows in the boat noticed him and was heading across stream.