Chapter 31

LONG CLAMS.

There was a soft ring in Lois's voice; it might be an echo of the trumpets and cymbals of which she had been speaking. Yet not done for effect; it was unconscious, and delicate as indescribable, for which reason it had the greater power. The party remained silent for a few minutes, all of them; during which a killdeer on the fence uttered his little shout of gratulation; and the wild, salt smell coming from the Sound and the not distant ocean, joined with the silence and Lois's hymn, gave a peculiar impression of solitude and desolation to at least one of the party. The cart entered an enclosure, and halted before a small building at the edge of the shore, just above high-water mark. There were several such buildings scattered along the shore at intervals, some enclosed, some not. The whole breadth of the Sound lay in view, blinking under the summer sun; yet the air was far fresher here than it had been in the village. The tide was half out; a wide stretch of wet sand, with little pools in the hollows, intervened between the rocks and the water; the rocks being no magnificent buttresses of the land, but large and small boulders strewn along the shore edge, hung with seaweed draperies; and where there were not rocks there was a growth of rushes on a mud bottom. The party were helped out of the cart one by one, and the strangers surveyed the prospect.

"'Afar in the desert,' this is, I declare," said the gentleman.

"Might as well be," echoed his wife. "Whatever do you come here for?" she said, turning to Lois; "and what do you do when you are here?"

"Get some clams and have supper."

"_Clams!_"--with an inimitable accent. "Where do you get clams?"

"Down yonder--at the edge of the rushes."

"Who gets them? and how do you get them?"

"I guess I shall get them to-day. O, we do it with a hoe."

Lois stayed for no more, but ran in. The interior room of the house, which was very large for a bathing-house, was divided in two by a partition. In the inner, smaller room, Lois began busily to change her dress. On the walls hung a number of bathing suits of heavy flannel, one of which she appropriated. Charity came in after her.

"You ain't a goin' for clams, Lois? Well, I wouldn't, if I was you."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't make myself such a sight, for folks to see."

"I don't at all do it for folks to see, but that folks may eat. We have brought 'em here, and now we must give them something for supper."

"Are you goin' with bare feet?"

"Why not?" said Lois, laughing. "Do you think I am going to spoil my best pair of shoes for vanity's sake?" And she threw off shoes and stockings as she spoke, and showed a pair of pretty little white feet, which glanced coquettishly under the blue flannel.

"Lois, what's brought these folks here?"

"I am sure I don't know."

"I wish they'd stayed where they belong. That woman's just turning up her nose at every blessed thing she sees."

"It won't hurt the Sound!" said Lois, laughing.

"What did they come for?"

"I can't tell; but, Charity, it will never do to let them go away feeling they got nothing by coming. So you have the kettle boiled, will you, and the table all ready--and I'll try for the clams."

"They won't like 'em."

"Can't help that."

"And what am I going to do with Mr. Sears?"

"Give him his supper of course."

"Along with all the others?"

"You must. You cannot set two tables."

"There's aunt Anne!" exclaimed Charity; and in the next minute aunt Anne came round to them by the front steps; for each half of the bathing-house had its own door of approach, as well as a door of communication. Mrs. Marx came in, surveyed Lois, and heard Charity's statement.

"These things will happen in the best regulated families," she remarked, beginning also to loosen her dress.

"What are you going to do, aunt Anne?"

"Going after clams, with Lois. We shall want a bushel or less; and we can't wait till the moon rises, to eat 'em."

"And how am I going to set the table with them all there?"

Mrs. Marx laughed. "I expect they're like cats in a strange garret. Set your table just as usual, Charry; push 'em out o' the way if they get in it. Now then, Lois!"

And, slipping down the steps and away off to the stretch of mud where the rushes grew, two extraordinary, flannel-clad, barefooted figures, topped with sun-bonnets and armed with hoes and baskets, were presently seen to be very busy there about something. Charity opened the door of communication between the two parts of the house, and surveyed the party. Mrs. Barclay sat on the step outside, looking over the plain of waters, with her head in her hand. Mrs. Armadale was in a rocking-chair, just within the door, placidly knitting. Mr. and Mrs. Lenox, somewhat further back, seemed not to know just what to do with themselves; and Madge, holding a little aloof, met her sister's eye with an expression of despair and doubt. Outside, at the foot of the steps, where Mrs. Barclay sat, lounged the ox driver.

"Ben here afore?" he asked confidentially of the lady.

"Yes, once or twice. I never came in an ox cart before."

"I guess you hain't," he replied, chewing a blade of rank grass which he had pulled for the purpose. "My judgment is we had a fust-rate entertainment, comin' down."

"I quite agree with you."

"Now in anythin' _but_ an ox cart, you couldn't ha' had it."

"No, not so well, certainly."

"_I_ couldn't ha' had it, anyway, withouten we'd come so softly. I declare, I believe them critters stepped soft o' purpose. It's better'n a book, to hear that girl talk, now, ain't it?"

"Much better than many books."

"She's got a lot o' 'em inside her head. That beats me! She allays was smart, Lois was; but I'd no idee she was so full o' book larnin'. Books is a great thing!" And he heaved a sigh.

"Do you have time to read much yourself, sir?"

"Depends on the book," he said, with a bit of a laugh. "Accordin' to that, I get much or little. No; in these here summer days a man can't do much at books; the evenin's short, you see, and the days is long; and the days is full o' work. The winter's the time for readin'. I got hold o' a book last winter that was wuth a great deal o' time, and got it. I never liked a book better. That was Rollin's 'Ancient History.'"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Barclay. "So you enjoyed that?"

"Ever read it?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you enjoy it?"

"I believe I like Modern history better."

"I've read some o' that too," said he meditatively. "It ain't so different. 'Seems to me, folks is allays pretty much alike; only we call things by different names. Alexander the Great, now,--he warn't much different from Napoleon Buonaparte."

"Wasn't he a better man?" inquired Mr. Lenox, putting his head out at the door.

"Wall, I don' know; it's difficult, you know, to judge of folk's insides; but I don't make much count of a man that drinks himself to death at thirty."

"Haven't you any drinking in Shampuashuh?"

"Wall, there ain't much; and what there is, is done in the dark, like. You won't find no rum-shops open."

"Indeed! How long has the town been so distinguished?"

"I guess it's five year. I _know_ it is; for it was just afore we put in our last President. Then we voted liquor shouldn't be president in Shampuashuh."

"Do you get along any better for it?"

"Wall"--slowly--"I should say we did. There ain't no quarrellin', nor fightin', nor anybody took up for the jail, nor no one livin' in the poorhouse--'thout it's some tramp on his way to some place where there _is_ liquor. An' _he_ don't want to stay."

"What are those two figures yonder among the grass?" Mrs. Lenox now asked; she also having come out of the house in search of objects of interest, the interior offering none.

"Them?" said Mr. Sears. "Them's Lois and her aunt. Their baskets is gettin' heavy, too. I'll make the fire for ye, Miss Charity," he cried, lifting his voice; and therewith disappeared.

"What are they doing?" Mrs. Lenox asked, in a lower tone.

"Digging clams," Mrs. Barclay informed her.

"Digging clams! How do they dig them?"

"With a hoe, I believe."

"I ought to go and offer my services," said the gentleman, rising.

"Do not think of it," said Mrs. Barclay. "You could not go without plunging into wet, soft mud; the clams are found only there, I believe."

"How do _they_ go?"

"Barefoot-dressed for it."

"_Un_dressed for it," said Mrs. Lenox. "Barefoot in the mud! Could you have conceived it!"

"They say the mud is warm," Mrs. Barclay returned, keeping back a smile.

"But how horrid!"

"I am told it is very good sport. The clams are shy, and endeavour to take flight when they hear the strokes of the hoe; so that it comes to a trial of speed between the pursuer and the pursued; which is quite exciting."

"I should think, if I could see a clam, I could pick it up," Mrs. Lenox said scornfully.

"Yes; you cannot see them."

"Do you mean, they run away _under ground?_"

"So I am told."

"How can they? they have no feet."

Mrs. Barclay could not help laughing now, and confessed her ignorance of the natural powers of the clam family.

"Where is that old man gone to make his fire? didn't he say he was going to make a fire?"

"Yes; in the cooking-house."

"Where is that?" And Mrs. Lenox came down the steps and went to explore. A few yards from the bathing-house, just within the enclosure fence, she found a small building, hardly two yards square, but thoroughly built and possessing a chimney. The door stood open; within was a cooking-stove, in which fire was roaring; a neat pile of billets of wood for firing, a tea-kettle, a large iron pot, and several other kitchen utensils.

"What is this for?" inquired Mrs. Lenox, looking curiously in.

"Wall, I guess we're goin' to hev supper by and by; ef the world don't come to an end sooner than I expect, we will, sure. I'm a gettin' ready."

"And is this place built and arranged just for the sake of having supper, as you call it, down here once in a while?"

"Couldn't be no better arrangement," said Mr. Sears. "This stove draws first-rate."

"But this is a great deal of trouble. I should think they would take their clams home and have them there."

"Some folks doos," returned Mr. Sears. "These here folks knows what's good. Wait till you see. I tell you! long clams, fresh digged, and b'iled as soon as they're fetched in, is somethin' you never see beat."

"_Long_ clams," repeated the lady. "Are they not the usual sort?"

"Depends on what you're used to. These is usual here, and I'm glad on't. Round clams ain't nowheres alongside o' 'em."

He went off to fill the kettle, and the lady returned slowly round the house to the steps and the door, which were on the sea side. Mr. Lenox had gone in and was talking to Mrs. Armadale; Mrs. Barclay was in her old position on the steps, looking out to sea. There was a wonderful light of westering rays on land and water; a rich gleam from brown rock and green seaweed; a glitter and fresh sparkle on the waves of the incoming tide; an indescribable freshness and life in the air and in the light; a delicious invigoration in the salt breath of the ocean. Mrs. Barclay sat drinking it all in, like one who had been long athirst. Mrs. Lenox stood looking, half cognizant of what was before her, more than half impatient and scornful of it; yet even on her the witchery of the place and the scene was not without its effect.

"Do you come here often?" she asked Mrs. Barclay. .

"Never so often as I would like."

"I should think you would be tired to death!"

Then, as Mrs. Barclay made no answer, she looked at her watch.

"Our train is not till ten o'clock," she remarked.

"Plenty of time," said the other. And then there was silence; and the sun's light grew more westering, and the sparkle on earth and water more fresh, and the air only more and more sweet; till two figures were discerned approaching the bathing-house, carrying hoes slung over their shoulders, and baskets, evidently filled, in their hands. They went round the house towards the cook-house; and Mrs. Barclay came down from her seat and went to meet them there, Mrs. Lenox following.

Two such figures! Sun-bonnets shading merry faces, flushed with business; blue flannel bathing-suits draping very unpicturesquely the persons, bare feet stained with mud,--baskets full of the delicate fish they had been catching.

"What a quantity!" exclaimed Mrs. Barclay.

"Yes, because I had aunt Anne to help. We cannot boil them all at once, but that is all the better. They will come hot and hot."

"You don't mean that you are going to cook all those?" said Mrs. Lenox incredulously.

"There will not be one too many," said Lois. "You do not know long clams yet."

"They are ugly things!" said the other, with a look of great disgust into the basket. "I don't think I could touch them."

"There's no obligation," responded here Mrs. Marx. She had thrown one basketful into a huge pan, and was washing them free from the mud and sand of their original sphere. "It's a free country. But looks don't prove much--neither at the shore nor anywhere else. An ugly shell often covers a good fish. So I find it; and t'other way."

"How do you get them?" inquired Mr. Lenox, who also came now to the door of the cook-house. Lois made her escape. "I see you make use of hoes."

"Yes," said Mrs. Marx, throwing her clams about in the water with great energy; "we dig for 'em. See where the clam lives, and then drive at him, and don't be slow about it; and then when the clam spits at you, you know you're on his heels--or on his track, I should say; and you take care of your eyes and go ahead, till you catch up with him; and then you've got him. And every one you throw into your basket you feel gladder and gladder; in fact, as the basket grows heavy, your heart grows light. And that's diggin' for long clams."

"The best part of it is the hunt, isn't it?"

"I'll take your opinion on that after supper."

Mr. Lenox laughed, and he and his wife sauntered round to the front again. The freshness, the sweetness, the bright rich colouring of sky and water and land, the stillness, the strangeness, the novelty, all moved Mr. Lenox to say,

"I would not have missed this for a hundred dollars!"

"Missed what?" asked his wife.

"This whole afternoon."

"It's one way that people live, I suppose."

"Yes, for they really do live; there is no stagnation; that is one thing that strikes me."

"Don't you want to buy a farm here, and settle down?" asked Mrs. Lenox scornfully. "Live on hymns and long clams?"

Meanwhile the interior of the bathing-house was changing its aspect. Part of the partition of boards had been removed and a long table improvised, running the length of the house, and made of planks laid on trestles. White cloths hid the rudeness of this board, and dishes and cups and viands were giving it a most hospitable look. A whiff of coffee aroma came now and then through the door at the back of the house, which opened near the place of cookery; piles of white bread and brown gingerbread, and golden butter and rosy ham and new cheese, made a most abundant and inviting display; and, after the guests were seated, Mr. Sears came in bearing a great dish of the clams, smoking hot.

Well, Mrs. Lenox was hungry, through the combined effects of salt air and an early dinner; she found bread and butter and coffee and ham most excellent, but looked askance at the dish of clams; which, however, she saw emptied with astonishing rapidity. Noticing at last a striking heap of shells beside her husband's plate, the lady's fastidiousness gave way to curiosity; and after that,--it was well that another big dishful was coming, or _somebody_ would have been obliged to go short.

At ten o'clock that evening Mr. and Mrs. Lenox took the night train to Boston.

"I never passed a pleasanter afternoon in my life," was the gentleman's comment as the train started.

"Pretty faces go a great way always with you men!" answered his wife.

"There is something more than a pretty face there. And she is improved--changed, somehow--since a year ago. What do you think now of your brother's choice, Julia?"

"It would have been his ruin!" said the lady violently.

"I declare I doubt it. I am afraid he'll never find a better. I am afraid you have done him mistaken service."

"George, this girl is _nobody_."

"She is a lady. And she is intelligent, and she is cultivated, and she has excellent manners. I see no fault at all to be found. Tom does not need money."

"She is nobody, nevertheless, George! It would have been miserable for Tom to lose all the advantage he is going to have with his wife, and to marry this girl whom no one knows, and who knows nobody."

"I am sorry for poor Tom!"

"George, you are very provoking. Tom will live to thank mamma and me all his life."

"Do you know, I don't believe it. I am glad to see _she's_ all right, anyhow. I was afraid at the Isles she might have been bitten."

"You don't know anything about it," returned his wife sharply. "Women don't show. _I_ think she was taken with Tom."

"I hope not!" said the gentleman; "that's all I have to say."