`` Empty clam-shells and dry seaweed ! '' snorted Sea Catch . `` There never has been such a thing in the world as a white seal . '' `` I ca n't help that , '' said Matkah ; `` there 's going to be now . '' And she sang the low , crooning seal song that all the mother seals sing to their babies : You must n't swim till you 're six weeks old , Or your head will be sunk by your heels ; And summer gales and Killer Whales Are bad for baby seals . Are bad for baby seals , dear rat , As bad as bad can be ; But splash and grow strong , And you ca n't be wrong . Child of the Open Sea ! Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first . He paddled and scrambled about by his mother 's side , and learned to scuffle out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal , and the two rolled and roared up and down the slippery rocks . Matkah used to go to sea to get things to eat , and the baby was fed only once in two days , but then he ate all he could and throve upon it . The first thing he did was to crawl inland , and there he met tens of thousands of babies of his own age , and they played together like puppies , went to sleep on the clean sand , and played again . The old people in the nurseries took no notice of them , and the holluschickie kept to their own grounds , and the babies had a beautiful playtime . When Matkah came back from her deep-sea fishing she would go straight to their playground and call as a sheep calls for a lamb , and wait until she heard Kotick bleat . Then she would take the straightest of straight lines in his direction , striking out with her fore flippers and knocking the youngsters head over heels right and left . There were always a few hundred mothers hunting for their children through the playgrounds , and the babies were kept lively . But , as Matkah told Kotick , `` So long as you do n't lie in muddy water and get mange , or rub the hard sand into a cut or scratch , and so long as you never go swimming when there is a heavy sea , nothing will hurt you here . '' Little seals can no more swim than little children , but they are unhappy till they learn . The first time that Kotick went down to the sea a wave carried him out beyond his depth , and his big head sank and his little hind flippers flew up exactly as his mother had told him in the song , and if the next wave had not thrown him back again he would have drowned . After that , he learned to lie in a beach pool and let the wash of the waves just cover him and lift him up while he paddled , but he always kept his eye open for big waves that might hurt . He was two weeks learning to use his flippers ; and all that while he floundered in and out of the water , and coughed and grunted and crawled up the beach and took catnaps on the sand , and went back again , until at last he found that he truly belonged to the water .
Then you can imagine the times that he had XXXXX his companions , ducking under the rollers ; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach ; or standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did ; or playing `` I 'm the King of the Castle '' on slippery , weedy rocks that just stuck out of the wash .
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