THE ANCIENT GRUDGE
I
"A HERO—ALWAYS"
A wide, white beach ran for a quarter of a mile from a rocky promontory to a point covered with trees. Here and there, through the fringe of pine woods, houses, white and red, thrust their gables; the windows of these caught the blaze of the afternoon sun that was now withdrawing inland. But the beach was so wide that the shadows from the woods had not yet reached and dulled the bright crowd assembled on the sand. People had gathered from all along this part of the Massachusetts shore to see the Chester Water Carnival.
Out upon the raft, fifty yards from shore, a diving-tower was built, tall and slender. The boy who was the first to climb it knelt for a moment when he reached the top. Then, having steadied himself, he rose and stood erect. The sun glistened kindly on his yellow hair, on his wet arms raised above his head; as he stood straight and still, he formed the last mark against sea and sky, and he had a gracefully heroic quality, which appealed to the women and girls. The other boys upon the raft looked up at him; everybody looked at him.
With a spring so light that no one quite recognized the movement with which it was made, he shot out through the air, arching with a perfect curve the space from tower to sea. Slim as a greyhound in the leap, he cut the water gently and then rose to the surface in time to hear the pattering applause.
