Read "Young People's Pride" by Stephen Vincent Benet online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The water was a broken glass of blue, sunstruck waves -- there were few swimmers in it where the two friends went in next morning, for the beach proper with its bath-houses and float was nearly a quarter of a mile down. Oliver could see Margaret's red cap bobbing twenty yards out as he tried the water cautiously with curling toes, and, much farther out, a blue cap and the flash of an arm going suddenly under. Mrs. Severance, the friend Louise had brought out for the week-end, he supposed; she swam remarkably for a woman. He swam well enough himself and couldn't give her two yards in the hundred. Ted stood beside him, both tingling a little at the fresh of the salt air. "Wow! " and they plunged.
A mock race followed for twenty yards -- then Oliver curved off to duck Margaret, already screaming and paddling at his approach, while Ted kept on.