U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [55]
neccos and started out. Alec and Joe paddled and Janey sat in the bottom with her sweater rol ed round a thwart for a pil ow. Alec was paddling in the bow. It was swelter-ing hot. The sweat made the shirt cling to the hol ow of his chunky back that curved with every stroke of the paddle. After a while the boys stripped to their bathing-suits that they wore under their clothes. It made Janey's throat tremble to watch Alec's back and the bulging muscles of his arm as he paddled, made her feel happy and scared. She sat there in her white dimity dress, trail-ing her hand in the weedy browngreen water. They
-140-stopped to pick waterlilies and the white flowers of arrow-head that glistened like ice and everything smelt wet rank of the muddy roots of waterlilies. The cream soda got warm and they drank it that way and kidded each other back and forth and Alec caught a crab and covered Janey's dress with greenslimy splashes and Janey didn't care a bit and they cal ed Joe skipper and he loosened up and said he was going to join the navy and Alec said he'd be a civil engineer and build a motorboat and take them al cruising and Janey was happy because they included her when they talked just like she was a boy too. At a place below the Fal s where there were locks in the canal they had a long portage down to the river. Janey carried the grub and the paddles and the frying pan and the boys sweated and cussed under the canoe. Then they paddled across to the Virginia side and made a fire in a little hol ow among gray rusty bowlders. Joe cooked the steak and Janey unpacked the sandwiches and cookies she'd made and nursed some murphies baking in the ashes. They
roasted ears of corn too that they had swiped out of a field beside the canal. Everything turned out fine except that they hadn't brought enough butter. Afterwards they sat eating cookies and drinking rootbeer quietly talking round the embers. Alec and Joe brought out pipes and she felt pretty good sitting there at the Great Fal s of the Potomac with two men smoking pipes.
" Geewhiz, Janey, Joe cooked that steak fine."
"When we was kids we used to ketch frogs and broil
'em up in Rock Creek . . . Remember, Alec?"
"Damned if I don't, and Janey she was along once; geewhiz, the fuss you kicked up then, Janey."
"I don't like seeing you skin them."
"We thought we was regular wildwest hunters then. We had packs of fun then."
"I like this better, Alec," said Janey hesitatingly.
-141-"So do I . . ." said Alec. "Dod gast it, I wisht we had a watermelon."
"Maybe we'l see some along the riverbank somewhere goin' home."
" Jiminy crickets, what I couldn't do to a watermelon, Joe."
" Mommer had a watermelon on ice," said Janey;
"maybe there'l be some yet when we get home."
"I don't never want to go home," said Joe, suddenly bitter serious.
" Joe, you oughtn't to talk like that." She felt girlish and frightened.
"I'l talk how I goddam please . . . Kerist, I hate the scrimpy dump."
" Joe, you oughtn't to talk like that." Janey felt she was going to cry.
"Dod gast it," said Alec. "It's time we shoved . . . What you say, ho . . . ? We'l take one more dip and then make tracks for home."
When the boys were through swimming they al went
up to look at the Fal s and then they started off. They went along fast in the swift stream under the steep tree-hung bank. The afternoon was very sultry, they went through layers of hot steamy air. Big cloudheads were piling up in the north. It wasn't fun any more for Janey. She was afraid it was going to rain. Inside she felt sick and drained out. She was afraid her period was coming on. She'd only had the curse a few times yet and the thought of it scared her and took al the strength out of her, made her want to crawl away out of sight like an old sick mangy cat. She didn't want Joe and Alec to notice how she felt. She thought how would it be if she turned the canoe over. The boys could swim ashore al right, and she'd drown and they'd drag the river for her body and everybody'd cry and feel so sorry about it. Purplegray murk rose steadily and drowned the white