Trained Clams
There was no more digging done that afternoon, although Bee returned to
the scene of operations and, seating himself with his feet in a trench,
spent a full half-hour ruminating amongst the ruins, as Jack put it.
Bill Glass had somewhat tarnished their enthusiasm. If the locality
had already been dug up at least once what was the use of doing it
again. Bee came back to the tent finally to lend a hand at the supper
preparations, acknowledging himself “quite discouraged.”
The sun had worked down behind a mass of sullen, coppery-gray clouds
by the time the fire was started and Jack, feeling of the air, as Bee
called it, shook his head and predicted bad weather on the morrow. “I
don’t believe we will be able to do any work, fellows,” he said. “Looks
to me like a good big gale coming. Perhaps, if it isn’t bad in the
morning, we might go home and wait for it to pass.”
“I’d like to be here in a gale,” said Bee. “I should think it would be
stunning.”
“Ye-es, but a tent, even a rain-proof one, isn’t exactly the place to
stay in a nor’easter, especially if it hangs on for a couple of days,
as it’s quite likely to.”
“Me for home and mother,” declared Hal. “Why not make it tonight?”
“Oh, shucks, there isn’t going to be any storm!” Bee scoffed. “Look
at that sunset! Besides, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, except a few
over there in the west. If it looks bad in the morning we’ll go back,
but don’t let’s spoil a jolly evening. How are you going to cook those
clams, Jack?”
“In wet seaweed, and you’re going to get the seaweed,” replied the
chef. Jack put the water on to boil and then took the clams down to the
beach. Under his direction Bee and Hal set about gathering seaweed and
driftwood, while Jack scooped a shallow bowl in the sand and set a few
stones about the edge. In this a fire was started, and, leaving the
others to keep it going, Jack returned to his “stove” at the tent. Up
there he boiled the tea, emptied the contents of a can of baked beans
into a frying pan and cut the bread. When he got back to the fire on
the beach it was a roaring pit of flames, and Hal and Bee, panting and
perspiring, were lying at a respectful distance, resting from their
exertions. Jack searched until he found a pole and with it poked at the
fire until Bee protested.
“We’ve nearly killed ourselves building that,” he said, “and now you’re
simply ruining it. First thing you know it will get peevish and bite
you, Jack.”
“I want to hurry it along. We’ve got to have a nice big bed of coals
before we can do anything. Run up and see about those beans, Bee, like
a good fellow. I don’t want them to burn. And you might put one or two
small pieces of wood on the fire up there.”
Bee arose with a groan. “Gee, this thing of cooking supper all over the
island is no cinch,” he murmured. “I wonder why we didn’t do it right
and have two or three more fires scattered around.”
Presently Jack threw off the burning wood and laid a layer of wet
seaweed over the glowing bed of embers. On the seaweed he placed the
clams, covering them with another layer of seaweed. Then he heaped
more wood on top and sat down to wait. Bee returned with the news that
the water was coming to a boil in the kettle and that he thought the
beans were pretty nearly hot enough because they had burned his finger
when he tried them! Jack’s pole was again put to work, the fire was
scattered and the top layer of seaweed removed.
“Look at the poor little things!” exclaimed Bee, as the clams were
revealed. “They’re gasping for breath!”
“They certainly smell mighty good,” said Hal as Jack gathered them into
the tin. “Do you think they’re done, Jack?”
“To a turn. Hurry up and let’s get at them while they’re hot.” At the
tent Jack quickly melted some butter and the three boys, by this time
almost hungry enough to eat shells and all, set to work. Hal forgot
his fears and went at those baked clams as though his life depended on
eating his share. Each filled a dish with them, took it into his lap
and said nothing for several minutes. At last Bee, disposing of his
shells by the simple expedient of tossing them over his head, held out
his tin plate.
“More,” he said.
“I don’t see why we haven’t had clams before,” remarked Hal, filling
his own plate again. “Shove the butter this way a bit, Jack, will you?”
“I shall be up before sunrise tomorrow,” said Bee, “clamming. How do
you catch them, anyway?”
“Take a shovel,” replied Jack gravely, “and walk quietly along the
flats until you see one. Then you chase it. If it gets to its nest
before you can grab it you have to dig it out.”
Bee eyed him suspiciously. “Nest? What are you talking about? Clams
burrow in the sand. Think I’m a fool?”
“Can’t a burrow be a nest?” asked Hal. “They’re always called clam
nests. Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘As cozy as a clam in its
nest?’”
“No, I haven’t. And I don’t believe you have to chase clams. How the
dickens could they run?” He held one up for inspection. “They haven’t
any legs!”
“They don’t have to have legs,” replied Jack, “and they don’t run.
I didn’t say they ran. What they do is put their heads out and pull
themselves along with their teeth. And maybe they can’t go!”
“It’s wonderful,” agreed Hal seriously. “Marvellous!”
Bee observed them and grunted skeptically.
“I remember a fellow who used to live on the Neck,” said Jack, “who had
a pair of trained clams. Ever hear of him, Hal?”
“Seems to me I have. Wasn’t his name Simpkins or something like that?”
“Hopkins, George Hopkins. He trained those clams to race and used to
take them around to the state fairs and things like that. Made quite a
lot of money, I believe.”
“I remember now,” said Hal. “He used to put a dish of melted butter
down and the clams would see which could get to it first. You wouldn’t
think a thing like a clam would have so much――so much intelligence,
would you?”
“Pity you aren’t a clam,” scoffed Bee. “You fellows must think I’m
pretty easy to believe a yarn like that. Trained clams! Did this fellow
Jenkins――”
“Hopkins,” corrected Jack, soberly.
“Did he ever think to have some hurdles and let the clams jump over
them?”
“I don’t believe so. I remember, though, that he taught one of them to
climb trees. I think that was Hortense. I believe Percy never would
learn that trick.”
“Hortense! I suppose those clams came when you called them?”
“Oh, yes; that is, usually. Once, though, Hortense got up into a tree
and refused to come down. And when, finally, Hopkins climbed up there
for her he found she was making a nest in the branches! I’ve often
wondered what became of those clams.”
“Don’t you know?” asked Bee. “I read about it in the paper a couple of
years ago. They were walking along the beach one day, hand in hand,
when a big wave came up and drowned them. It was indeed a clammy death.”
“I’ll have a clammy death,” laughed Jack, “if I don’t stop eating
these. Want some more, Hal? Lots of them here. No? Well, how do you
fellows feel about baked beans?”
“Are they trained beans?” asked Bee suspiciously.
“No, just baked. Have some?”
“About seven, thanks. I’m not as hungry as I was. I’ll bet I’ve eaten
twelve dozen of those bivalves. A clam is a bivalve, isn’t it?”
“Always, unless it has three shells.”
“What is it then?” asked Hal, reaching for the teapot.
“A curiosity. Who’s seen the canned cow?”
By bedtime a little breeze had sprung up from the east and the
temperature made a sudden drop. The boys were glad to get into the
shelter of the tent. Hal had been very quiet for some time and was the
first under the blankets. It was perhaps an hour later when Jack was
awakened by hearing his name called.
“Hello!” he cried. “What is it?”
“It’s me,” answered Hal’s voice from the darkness. “I’m dying! I knew
he’d poisoned them!”
“Dying? What for?” Jack, half awake, crawled shivering out of bed and
groped for the lantern. “Who poisoned what?”
“The clams. Bill Glass poisoned them,” groaned Hal. “I told you he had.
O――oh! Can’t you do anything, Jack?”
“Yes, I can light the lantern if I ever find it,” muttered Jack. “Hi,
Bee!”
“What?” asked Bee sleepily.
“Wake up. Hal’s got a tummy-ache.”
“So have I,” grumbled Bee. “Let me alone.”
When the lantern was finally lighted Hal was discovered as nearly tied
in a knot as he could be, groaning pathetically. “It’s the clams, Jack.
They were poisoned. I――I think I’m going to die!”
“I think you’re going to drink a pint of hot water if I can get a fire
started,” muttered Jack, struggling into his trousers. “Get up, Bee,
and lend a hand.”
“All right,” yawned Bee. “What’ll I do? Want your tummy rubbed, Hal?”
“_No!_ Don’t touch it! Haven’t you got any medicine, Jack?”
“Plenty. I’m getting it as fast as I can. Find a match, Bee.”
The wind was blowing hard and the tent was tugging at its ropes, and
starting a fire wasn’t an easy matter. Luckily, however, a few embers
still remained and there was wood handy and at last Jack had the fire
going and the kettle on. But the wind blew the flames around, driving
sparks into the air, and the water heated slowly. Meanwhile Hal groaned
on, protesting between groans that he was poisoned and would surely die.
“All the matter with you is that you ate too many clams,” replied Jack.
“I’ll have you fixed up in five minutes, Hal.”
“I shan’t――be alive――in five minutes,” groaned Hal. “Why did we come
away without any medicine? Ow! O-o-oh! Can’t you do anything for a
fellow, Jack?”
“Just a minute now,” comforted Jack. “Feel a little better, do you?”
“No, it’s getting――_worse_! It――it’s ptomaine poisoning, and folks die
of that, don’t they?”
“Not generally, I guess. Turn over and let Bee rub you, Hal.”
“_No-o-o!_ I don’t want――to be rubbed! Isn’t that――water hot yet?”
It was, and Bee supported Hal’s head while Jack poured cupful after
cupful of scalding water down his throat, Hal protesting whenever they
allowed him a chance that they were burning his insides.
“Never mind that, have some more,” replied Jack. “Feel better now?”
“I don’t know,” moaned Hal, as Bee laid his head down again. “You’ve
scalded――my throat horribly.”
Hal had rather a hard time of it for another quarter of an hour, during
which the others sat beside him and shivered in the cold blasts that
crept under the tent. Jack piled all the clothing he could find on
Hal’s bed and at last the latter fell off to sleep.
Jack stretched his arms, yawning and shivering. “There, he’s all right,
I guess. Let’s get to bed. My, but it’s cold!”
“Isn’t it? My feet are like chunks of ice. I had a stomach ache myself
when you woke me up, but I guess I worked it off. No more trained clams
for me, Jack!”