Jill felt obligated to Leona for helping her regain her self-respect after being teased mercilessly by Jake and his friends. Because of that, she wanted to do something for her friend, something that was comparable to what Leona did for her, and the only thing that she knew Leona needed help with was her fear of water. So during the early part of the summer of ’23 Jill decided that she was going to help her overcome that fear, or at least try. It was June 14th of that summer and Jill was having lunch with her mother.
“I’m gonna ask Leona to go fishing with me tomorrow,” Jill said.
“That’s wonderful, Jill. I bet she’ll be thrilled, what with loving to fish the way she does. Are you gonna go swimming too? If you do, you be sure to be careful.”
“I will, Mother. Don’t you worry; I’m a good swimmer. Daddy taught me real good; and besides, the place I swim is safe enough. The water barely makes it up to my chest.”
“Well, okay. I guess with Leona being there too, I don’t have much to worry about.”
“Actually, Leona doesn’t know how to swim.”
“She doesn’t? Good Lord, that’s hard to believe. She’s so athletic, and always so fearless at doing things.”
“She is, about most things, but she almost drowned when she was little and now she’s deathly afraid of goin’ in the water.”
“Well, I guess I can’t blame her for that; once a person gets fear into them it’s doubly hard to overcome it.”
“I know what you mean, Mother. But I’m gonna try my best to help Leona conquer her fear. It’s the least I can do after what she did for me.”
“How are you gonna do that, dear?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll think of something.”
Jill thought long and hard about how she could persuade Leona to go into the water, and after a while she had a plan. That evening Jill walked to the Haleys’ home to put her plan into action.
“Leona, do you want to go fishing with me tomorrow?” Jill asked.
“Can I, Mama?”
“I don’t see why not,” Margaret said.
“Thanks, Mama. What time are you going, Jill?”
“How about we leave around 9:00. I’ll make a picnic lunch, and we can fish and talk and just have fun.”
“Great,” Leona said. “I’ll bring a deck of cards so we can play Old Maid. On second thought, do you know how to play Cribbage, Jill?”
“Oh yes, I love Cribbage. I used to play with my dad, but I haven’t played for a long, long time. Mom isn’t one for card games.”
“Then, I’ll bring my Cribbage board too. Are you gonna bring anything?” Leona asked.
“Yes, but it’s a surprise.”
“Good, I love surprises.”
“Well, I’d better be getting back home. My mother probably has supper ready by now. See you tomorrow, Leona.”
“See you, Jill.”
—1—
It was 8:15 the next morning and Jill had her picnic basket all packed.
“I’m off, Mother. I’m gonna meet Leona at her place. I’ll be home in time for supper.”
“Bye, dear. Have fun. It looks like you’re gonna have a good day for fishing; there’s not a cloud in the sky this morning.”
As Jill was walking out the door she heard her mother say one last thing: “Be careful, dear.”
Jill just smiled and waved goodbye. While walking along Friendship Path she was thinking about her plan, going over-and-over it in her head. Jill had never tried to deceive Leona before, so she couldn’t be sure if her body language would give her away or not. All she could do was hope it wouldn’t. She held her breath and walked in when Leona met her at the door.
“All ready, Leona?”
“Yup. Just have to run up to my bedroom. I forgot to get the Cribbage board.”
Jill almost said: “Never mind, you won’t be needing it.” But she caught herself; and when Leona returned, they headed out and arrived at Black Bear Bridge a little after 9:30 that morning.
“It’s such a beautiful day,” Leona said.
“It sure is,” Jill replied. “We should be able to catch lots of fish today. My mom says she’ll fry us some for supper if we do.”
“Then I hope we catch some trout because those are my favorite,” Leona said.
It was going on 10:00 and the girls had managed to catch only a couple of sunfish off the bridge.
“Let’s go downstream a little bit, Leona. I know a place where we can catch some trout for sure.”
“Okay. How far is it?”
“About a quarter-mile.”
Jill led Leona to a spot where the river widened and made a sharp turn. A large, flat rock lie 30 feet offshore, and between it and the riverbank the stream was almost as calm as a small pond.
“The water sure is nice here, Jill. You can see the fish swimming all the way out to that rock. I’ve never seen water quite this clear. Look! There’s a cute little turtle swimming over there.”
“Let’s wade in a little,” Jill said.
They took off their shoes and waded into the shallow stream until they were about five feet offshore, where the water was barely knee deep; and then Jill spoke.
“Let’s go over there. We can stand on the rock and really cast the line a long ways.”
“I don’t know, Jill. That water looks awful deep to me.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve been out there many times and it’s only three feet at the deepest point. Don’t worry, we’ll take it real slow, so you can see how shallow it is. Just hold onto my arm.”
Leona reluctantly agreed and the two waded slowly out to the large rock. Halfway to the rock the water was thigh deep, and as they approach the rock it was more than waist deep. Leona was holding onto Jill’s arm so tight that it hurt.
“For gosh sake, Leona! Loosen your grip a little. You’re cutting off my circulation.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Jill. I didn’t know.”
“Okay, Leona. We’re here. You can breathe now,” Jill joked when they reached the rock.
The nearly circular rock was virtually flat and about 8 feet in diameter, so both girls had plenty of room to either sit or lie down while they waited for the fish to bite.
“I thought you said there were lots of fish in this area,” Leona said after 40 minutes had passed. “We haven’t caught anything but sunfish.”
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t have any idea whether this was a good spot to fish or not. I’ve never fished here before; just went swimming.”
“Then why’d you say it was good for fishing?”
“Because I wanted you to see for yourself just how nice it was for swimming.”
“Swimming? Why?”
“Because, I’m gonna teach you how to swim.”
“What? I told you I’m afraid of the water.”
“You can’t be that much afraid of water. You made it out here, didn’t you? You’re not afraid of water; you’re just afraid of drowning,” Jill said jokingly, trying to relax her friend. “With my help I’m sure you can overcome your fear. All you have to do is trust me.”
“I trust you, Jill; it’s the water I don’t trust.”
“You don’t have to trust the water. Water is inanimate. You just have to trust me. Look, Leona, you helped me when those boys were harassing me. Now I want to pay you back by helping you get over your fear of water and finally learn how to swim. It’s easy and it’s so much fun. I can teach you if you let me; and maybe someday you’ll save someone—like Hans saved you.”
“Are you really a good swimmer, Jill?”
“Yes, my daddy taught me at this very spot before he died; and, like you, I was deathly afraid of water, but I gradually got over it. And once I did I used to swim here all the time, all by myself. Especially when I was lonely and needed something to do. So will you let me teach you, Leona?”
“Well, I don’t know?” Leona responded hesitantly. “I....”
“Please. We’ll take it nice and slow. We have all day you know. The water here is really calm and it’s so shallow you’ll never find a better place to learn; the water level is perfect for swimming, and there’s no one around to get in our way. I guarantee you’ll feel as comfortable as a fish in water by the end of the day. The first thing I have to do is help you overcome your fear of being in water. After that I can teach you how to swim in no time.”
“I don’t think I can do it, Jill.”
“Yes you can. You just have to trust me. I’m not gonna let anything happen to my best friend. Believe me, it’ll be fun. And besides, today will show us whether I’ll make a good teacher or not. If you don’t drown, then the answer will be yes.”
“Vare-ree funny,” Leona said while rolling her eyes at Jill.
“Seriously, Leona, we’ll take it nice and slow, and you can stop anytime you want to. First I’ll show you how to float on your back with your face completely out of the water, and that will give you more confidence and make it easier for you to learn how to swim.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, then you’ll know that you don’t have to worry about drowning,” Jill assured her friend.
“Is it hard to float?” Leona asked.
“No it’s easy, especially for girls. We’re more buoyant than boys are.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we can float better than boys.”
“I think you’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Leona said.
“It’s true. And as soon as our breasts develop a little more we’ll be able to float even better. In fact, Lillian will never have to worry about drowning. If you pushed her to the bottom she’d pop right back up, just like a fishin’ bob.”
Leona looked at Jill as if her friend was touched in the head and they both broke into laughter.
“Are you really sure floating is easy to learn?”
“Of course. In fact, you don’t even have to learn how to float. It just happens.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember when you told me about the time you almost drowned. You said you were in the water for about a minute before the men got to you. Well, you didn’t know how to swim then, did you?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you just sink to the bottom and drown as soon as you went into the water?”
“I’m not sure?”
“It was because you were floating, turkey. You only started to go under because you got tired and panicked. If you hadn’t panicked, you could have floated all the way down the Penobscot.”
“Yeah, and then I would have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean.”
“No you wouldn’t. Actually, the salt water makes it easier to float.”
Leona again looked at her friend as if she were touched.
“I swear to God, Jill, you’re making this stuff up.”
“No I’m not. I swear on a Bible. Floating is almost effortless, so the first thing I’m gonna do is show you how to float on your back. That’s the easiest way to float. And if you get tired or start to panic while I’m teaching you to swim, all you have to do is roll onto your back and float.”
“Then what?” Leona wanted to know.
“We’ll play it by ear from there,” Jill said. “So wha’da’ya say? Are you game?”
Jill knew all along that she intended to teach Leona how to hold her breath under water, after she learned how to float. But she decided it was best not to tell her friend that just yet.
“Okay, I’ll give it a shot,” Leona said, “but if I start to get nervous I’m gonna stop.”
“You can stop anytime you want.”
“I sure hope I don’t live to regret this. Whoops! I take that back. I meant, I hope I do live, and that I don’t regret doing this.”
“Don’t you worry your little head, Leona. By the end of the day you’ll be thanking me. Now, let’s wade over to the shore and change into some bathing suits that I just happened to have stored at the bottom of the picnic basket.”
“So that’s the surprise you had for me, huh? You are devious, aren’t you, Jill?”
“When I have to be.”
They laughed. Then Jill took Leona’s arm and helped her wade to shore.
After they were almost on shore, Jill said, “We might as well use this spot right here to begin the lessons. It’s only two feet deep, so you don’t have to be concerned about drowning.”
“That’s good, because right about now that’s exactly what I’m concerned about.”
Jill laughed and promptly tried to calm her best-friend’s fears.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, ‘cause you’ll never be in more than three feet of water. So, if you get scared, all you have to do is stand up. It’s pretty hard for someone over five feet to drown standing up in three feet of water.”
—2—
After changing into the swimsuits the two girls waded offshore about ten feet to the spot Jill picked out. Then she asked Leona to sit down in the water and the reluctant girl did.
“Okay, now slowly lay back. And don’t worry, I’ll keep my hand under your back until you get used to floating in the water by yourself.”
Leona did as her friend said and after only five minutes she was floating, all on her own.
“Okay, now I’ll show you how to use your arms to move through the water.”
“But I don’t want to turn onto my stomach,” a panicking Leona pleaded.
“Don’t worry, you don’t have to. The first stroke I’m gonna show you is used to propel yourself through the water while floating on your back.”
“Good,” the relieved girl said.
“All you do is keep your arms straight and move them together so they go from your sides to your legs, just like you do to make snow angels.”
“Like this?” Leona asked.
“Yes. Only, when your arms are going from your sides to your legs, keep the palms of your hands vertical so you push against the water. And when your hands are coming back to your side, keep the palms horizontal so you don’t push the water. Here, like this.”
“Oh, I get it! That makes sense,” Leona said.
After a few tries Leona was moving in the water with ease while floating on her back, and she was ecstatic.
“This is a piece of cake, Jill.”
“See, I told you swimming was easy,” her friend replied.
“You mean I’m swimming?”
“Of course, silly. There are tons of ways to swim. After I teach you something else you’ll find useful, I’ll teach you the backstroke so you can swim faster on your back.”
“What are you gonna teach me now?”
“How to hold your breath under water, and how to breathe when your head comes up.”
“Do you have to?” Leona joked. “Especially the first. I think I can handle the second though.”
“Yes, I have to,” Jill said sternly, trying to keep a straight face. “Now let’s wade out to where it’s three feet deep and I’ll show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re gonna learn that you are the master of the water, and not vice versa.”
Jill spent the next thirty minutes letting Leona duck her head under the water and try to hold her breath for as long as she could.
“Wow, Leona! I’ve never seen anyone hold their breath for 35 seconds. The longest I’ve held mine is 25. You could swim all the way across this river and back without having to breathe. I guess you don’t have to worry about drowning here.”
“I don’t?”
“No. In fact, the next thing I was gonna show you was how to swim from the rock to the shore while holding your breath. It’ll take you less than ten seconds to swim that distance, so you’ll have no trouble at all holding your breath while you do. After you get used to swimming from the rock to the shore you can practice swimming in the opposite direction.”
“What difference does the direction make?”
“None really. But I thought you might feel more comfortable swimming from the deeper end of the water toward the shallow end.”
“You’re right, I would.”
Jill was right about something else too. Leona could easily hold her breath while using a breaststroke to swim from the rock to the shore. After she did that a dozen times, Jill knew it was time to have her swim in the opposite direction.
“Leona, my legs are getting a little tired from wading all the way out to the rock. Do you think you’re ready to swim out to it now?”
“I think so,” Leona answered meekly.
Even so, Jill sensed the confidence that Leona had gained so far that morning, and said:
“Good. I’ll race you out to it, if you really think you’re up to it.”
“Well, I don’t know about racing…” Leona started to say.
“Leona! It’s time to fish or cut bait, so what’s it gonna be?”
“Cutting bait sounds good to me, Jill?” Leona nervously joked.
“Oh, I see. I guess that idiot Jake Comeau was right about girls after all,” Jill teased.
That’s all Leona needed to hear; she jumped into the water and began swimming as hard as she could for the rock. Jill let her friend get a five-foot head-start, and then she jumped into the water too. When the race was over, Jill had beaten her friend by more than ten feet.
“You are a good swimmer,” Leona said. “You went by me like I was standing still.”
“That’s because you were using a breast stroke and I was swimming freestyle. Regardless, the fact that I beat you is not the important thing. What’s important is that you swam all the way out here without giving it a second thought.”
“Huh? You’re right. I did!”
“And just think, Leona. It’s only noontime, so by the end of the day you should be able swim freestyle and then I wouldn’t be surprised if you beat me. Now, let’s eat lunch and rest for an hour before I show you how to really swim.”
“That sounds good to me, Jill, but you hav’ta be kidding about my ability. I’m such a dimwit there’s no way I’m gonna be able to swim like you by the end of the day, let alone beat you.”
“I think you will, Leona. You’re much stronger than me and you’re much more athletic than me, too. But regardless, by the end of this summer you’re certainly gonna be a better swimmer than me; just you wait and see. It took my father half a day to teach me what you’ve learned to do in less than two hours. You’re just a natural athlete.”
A smile came to Leona’s face when she heard Jill say that, and with the smile came even more confidence. And that confidence was the reason Leona came close that day to fulfilling her friend’s prediction. Although she wasn’t quite as fast as Jill, by the end of the day she had learned to swim freestyle while taking normal breaths in the water, and she wasn’t that far behind Jill in her ability to swim. Much to her great surprise, by the end of the summer Leona was able to easily beat her friend each time they raced.
—3—
Leona was thrilled that she finally knew how to swim, something she never dreamed possible. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, she could thank her upbringing for that, because if she hadn’t stepped in and helped Jill when the bullies were harassing her, it’s likely that Jill would have never forced her friend to face her fear and conquer it. So the trait of standing up for what’s right, that her parents taught her, stood her in good stead; as did what she learned while reading Chapter 31 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when she was eight. Leona teared-up when she first read it.
Huck had just finished writing a note to the ‘owner’ of his new companion, a runaway slave named Jim, offering to return him to his ‘rightful owner’ for the reward money: $300. He knew in his mind, if not in his heart, that returning Jim was the right thing to do—indeed, his duty and obligation—or else he would go straight to hell.
The night Jill taught her how to swim, Leona was thinking about her special friendship and she was reminded of the friendship that had developed between young Huck and old Jim, so she opened that novel, found the passage where, after writing the note to Jim’s ‘owner’, Huck was thinking to himself about what he had done—of all the millions of words she had ever read, they were her most favorite—and she read Huck’s words aloud.
“I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was that all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time; in the day and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and suchlike times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, for ever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’—and tore it up.”
When Leona was finished reading, she had goosebumps and felt a chill come over her, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She remembered the same thing happening the first time she read those words, and recalled what she thought.
“He might have been mischievous, but Ole Huck turned out to be not near as bad as people thought. Mama and Papa were right, you can’t always go on your first feelings about people.”
—4—
Another valuable trait that Margaret and Murdock instilled in Leona was that of being a hard worker.
Her father once told her: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well, no matter how small the task. And the rewards that come from being a hard worker will surprise you. So don’t be afraid of work, embrace it. In particular, when you sit down to study your homework, block everything else out of your mind and do the best you can at that task. Hard work hasn’t killed anyone, yet; and you’ll feel so much more satisfied when the job is done if you put your best into it. And, what’s more, you can take pride in knowing that you did it yourself.”
Murdock wasn’t alone in teaching Leona about the virtue of hard work. She also learned firsthand from her mother just what it meant for a woman to work hard in those days. Margaret wasn’t one to shy away from hard work of any sort, and that was obvious from the way she kept her house clean, fixed meals, washed clothes and dishes, as well as from the long hours she toiled in the family garden. Indeed, working daybreak to sundown was nothing new for Margaret, and Leona tried hard to lessen her mother’s load by helping out with her many chores. Like her mother, Leona seldom complained about all the work she had to do, mainly because she realized that she was helping her parents, and anything to make their lives easier Leona would gladly do. It didn’t hurt that she also got to listen to their amusing stories whenever she helped them. They were good parents in her eyes because they would talk to her as if she were a grown-up, and not like a child who was just in the way, as she had witnessed some of her friends being treated by their parents. But most of all, they spent time with her, teaching her the three R’s—reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic—just as they had with Arlene and Lillian when they were little.
In addition to that, Margaret and Murdock often played card games and a creative spelling game with Leona, which was not only a way to entertain her, but, more important, a way to educate her. Because of those things, Leona’s reading, writing, and math skills were always exemplary thanks to her parent’s help, and she was much better at them than most 1st-graders were, long before she attended school. As a result it didn’t take her long to easily master reading once she started her formal education. And when that happened she would read almost everything she got her hands on, including an illustrated encyclopedia that Eunice gave to all the Haley children for the Christmas of 1914. Leona’s insatiable appetite for reading helped her excel in school because she often knew facts about historical places and events long before Miss Hutchinson taught them. Indeed, she made a habit of finding out in advance the subjects Miss Hutchinson planned to teach and then use the encyclopedia, or whatever else she could get her hands on and found useful to read, to learn more about those subjects.
However, not everything that Leona learned was found in the encyclopedia or textbooks. Her father often entertained her with stories of his childhood in Canada, and she remembered how her mother would read bedtime stories to her until she could read on her own. As a child Leona especially liked to read stories of far off places, all the while dreaming of traveling to those places when she got older: Asia, Hawaii, the South Seas, the Caribbean, London, Paris, Rome—all the wondrous places she read about.
The 7th grade was particularly gratifying to Leona. She received five A’s on her report card, and that made her parents extremely proud. They were even more proud of Leona when Miss Hutchinson complimented her on the way she helped the younger students.
“Leona had a knack when it came to explaining things to the 1st and 2nd-graders,” the grateful teacher told the Haleys at a PTA meeting.
“That’s probably due to her interaction with Wally when he was a tyke,” Margaret replied.
“Yeah, he was such a devil, you had to be very clever to get him to do anything,” Murdock added. “It seemed like Leona was the only one who could get through to him.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” Miss Hutchinson said. “Leona was particularly helpful when Wally began school, because he was sooo hyperactive that it was hard for me to teach him and the other students too. Indeed, when I saw how calm Wally was when Leona was helping him, I allowed her to spend as much time as she could with him.”
With encouragement from Leona, Wally gradually calmed down and began to respond to Miss Hutchinson too. But even so, his older sister continued to help him with his schoolwork whenever needed.
Of course, Leona’s parents already knew of her abilities from watching the way she helped Wally with his homework, but they still appreciated it when the teacher lavished their daughter with praise. Although Wally was not as studious as Leona, he too began to get good grades thanks to her help. Margaret was especially thankful for that because she was no longer physically able to help her son the way she once did.
“I guess I’m getting old,” she told Murdock. “I don’t have the energy I once had.”