Nobody Part 79

"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 gra.s.s?" 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 quant.i.ty!" 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 sh.o.r.e nor anywhere else. An ugly sh.e.l.l 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."