Every single toddler in Shanky Bottom, and in the American south for that matter, that ever crawled or toddled spent a significant part of their toddler years in mud puddles. One might say that’s how they get started on learning how to swim. But even the deepest part of a mud puddle, perhaps the most joyful place on the planet for a toddler, is not a place where they can learn to swim. So near the end of toddlerhood, or soon after, these adventurous beings graduate from puddles and toddlerhood and advance to deeper waters.
Usually it’s their grandpa that gives them their swimming lessons. He takes them down to a shallow creek and finds a good hole in it, what everybody around here calls a swimming hole. He and the dogs will wade out there and make sure there aren’t any snakes in the hole, and the dogs will start paddling around and grandpa’ll tell the kid to watch the dogs and do like them. Grandpa will then pick the kid up and tote him or her out to the hole and ease them in and pretty soon the kid’s paddling around like a dog and headed for the Olympics. That evening everybody is happy and when they say the blessing at supper, everybody thanks the Lord for dogs, and mud puddles, and swimming holes.