They ran down to the bridge to look up and down the river brown and dark in the white glary morning between foliage-sodden banks; then they found the canoe that belonged to a friend of Alec’s in a house by the canal, bought some cream soda and rootbeer and some packages of neccos and started out. Alec and Joe paddled and Janey sat in the bottom with her sweater rolled round a thwart for a pillow. Alec was paddling in the bow. It was sweltering hot. The sweat made the shirt cling to the hollow of his chunky back that curved with every stroke of the paddle. After a while the boys stripped to their bathingsuits 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, trailing her hand in the weedy browngreen water. They stopped to pick waterlilies and the white flowers of arrowhead 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 called 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 all cruising and Janey was happy because they included her when they talked just like she was a boy too. At a place below the Falls 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 hollow 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 Falls 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.
“So do I…” said Alec. “Dod gast it, I wisht we had a watermelon.”
“Maybe we’ll 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’ll 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’ll 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, bo…? We’ll take one more dip and then make tracks for home.” When the boys were through swimming they all went up to look at the Falls and then they started off. They went along fast in the swift stream under the steep treehung 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 all 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 all 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 summits of the cloudheads. Everything got to be livid white and purple. The boys paddled as hard as they could. They could hear the advancing rumble of thunder. The bridge was well in sight when the wind hit them, a hot stormwind full of dust and dead leaves and bits of chaff and straw, churning the riverwater.
They made the shore just in time. “Dod gast it, this is goin’ to be some storm,” said Alec; “Janey, get under the boat.” They turned the canoe over on the pebbly shore in the lee of a big bowlder and huddled up under it. Janey sat in the middle with the waterlilies they had picked that morning all shriveled and clammy from the heat in her hand. The boys lay in their damp bathingsuits on either side of her. Alec’s towsled black hair was against her cheek. The other side of her Joe lay with his head in the end of the canoe and his lean brown feet and legs in their rolledup pants tucked under her dress. The smell of sweat and riverwater and the warm boysmell of Alec’s hair and shoulders made her dizzy. When the rain came drumming on the bottom of the canoe curtaining them in with lashing white spray, she slipped her arm round Alec’s neck and let her hand rest timidly on his bare shoulder. He didn’t move.
The rain passed after a while. “Gee, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” said Alec. They were pretty wet and chilly but they felt good in the fresh rainwashed air. They put the canoe back in the water and went on down as far as the bridge. Then they carried it back to the house they’d gotten it from, and went to the little shelter to wait for the electric car. They were tired and sunburned and sticky. The car was packed with a damp Sunday afternoon crowd, picnickers caught by the shower at Great Falls and Glen Echo. Janey thought she’d never stand it till she got home. Her belly was all knotted up with a cramp. When they got to Georgetown the boys still had fifty cents between them and wanted to go to a movie, but Janey ran off and left them. Her only thought was to get to bed so that she could put her face into the pillow and cry.
After that Janey never cried much; things upset her but she got a cold hard feeling all over instead. Highschool went by fast, with hot thunderstormy Washington summers in between terms, punctuated by an occasional picnic at Marshall Hall or a party at some house in the neighborhood. Joe got a job at the Adams Express. She didn’t see him much as he didn’t eat home any more. Alec had bought a motorcycle and although he was still in highschool Janey heard little about him. Sometimes she sat up to get a word with Joe when he came home at night. He smelt of tobacco and liquor though he never seemed to be drunk. He went to his job at seven and when he got out in the evenings he went out with the bunch hanging round poolrooms on 4½ Street or playing craps or bowling. Sundays he played baseball in Maryland. Janey would sit up for him, but when he came she’d ask him how things were going where he worked and he’d say “Fine” and he’d ask her how things were going at school and she’d say “Fine” and then they’d both go off to bed. Once in a while she’d ask if he’d seen Alec and he’d say “Yes” with a scrap of a smile and she’d ask how Alec was and he’d say “Fine.”