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All the World Over: Interesting Stories of Travel, Thrilling Adventure and Home Life

Chapter 50: LEARNING TO SWIM.
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About This Book

A varied anthology of travel sketches, short tales, poems, and domestic vignettes by multiple contributors, offering lively impressions of foreign cities and countryside alongside thrilling adventures and gentle children’s stories. Pieces range from first-person travel sketches that capture street scenes, markets, and local customs to whimsical and moral short fiction and occasional verse. The collection alternates descriptive reportage and imaginative narratives, often accompanied by illustrations, and emphasizes vivid sensory detail, folk practices, everyday amusements, and small moral or comic resolutions, providing a blend of light entertainment, practical observation, and homely sentiment.

LEARNING TO SWIM.


BY EDGAR FAWCETT.


HERE I am, papa,
In my new tights dressed,
Crazy for a bath,
It must be confessed.
Shall we go straight in?
Oo! the water’s cold!
Let me take your hand,
Nice and large to hold.
I’m a big boy, now,
Tall and strong of limb.
Eight years old to-day,
Yet I cannot swim!
Teach me, please, papa;
Keep my chin up ... so!
Not a bit of use—
Down I’m sure to go!
Don’t I kick out right
While my arms are spread?
O, I really think
That I’m made of lead!
Floundering here, I feel
Like so sad a dunce!
It’s as though you tried
Twenty things at once!
While you make your strokes
Regular and neat,
You must also tend
To your legs and feet!
I don’t even float
As well as some old log!
O, how can you swim
Unless you’re born a frog!