Ah, Delicious Moment When I Felt That Breaker Grip And Fling
Me.
On I dashed, a hundred and fifty feet, and subsided with the breaker
on the sand.
From that moment I was lost. I waded back to Ford
with his board. It was a large one, several inches thick, and
weighed all of seventy-five pounds. He gave me advice, much of it.
He had had no one to teach him, and all that he had laboriously
learned in several weeks he communicated to me in half an hour. I
really learned by proxy. And inside of half an hour I was able to
start myself and ride in. I did it time after time, and Ford
applauded and advised. For instance, he told me to get just so far
forward on the board and no farther. But I must have got some
farther, for as I came charging in to land, that miserable board
poked its nose down to bottom, stopped abruptly, and turned a
somersault, at the same time violently severing our relations. I
was tossed through the air like a chip and buried ignominiously
under the downfalling breaker. And I realized that if it hadn't
been for Ford, I'd have been disembowelled. That particular risk is
part of the sport, Ford says. Maybe he'll have it happen to him
before he leaves Waikiki, and then, I feel confident, his yearning
for sensation will be satisfied for a time.
When all is said and done, it is my steadfast belief that homicide
is worse than suicide, especially if, in the former case, it is a
woman.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 79 of 305
Words from 20978 to 21246
of 80724
