DICK’S CLAMBAKE
Anne was awakened at what seemed an unearthly hour by the sound of
a bugle. “_I can’t get ’em up! I can’t get ’em up in the morning!_”
Several merry voices seemed to be singing the words which Anne had
never heard before.
At first she did not know where she was. For in spite of the hard
little narrow bed she had slept like a top. The brown tent over
her head, the spicy air coming in at the open door, the song of
birds close by, and their flying silhouettes on the canvas made the
queerest ending to her dream of home. But presently she heard a groan
from the cot opposite hers, and remembered that she had a tent-mate.
“Time to get up!” Norma’s warning voice sounded musically outside, as
she passed on her way to the kitchen.
“It’s disgusting to be wakened so early!” moaned Beverly, rubbing her
eyes. “I wonder if I shall ever get used to it.”
Anne looked at her wrist-watch. “Seven! At home I never get up till
eight,” she complained.
“Neither do I,” Beverly yawned. “But here some of us have to help get
breakfast, you know. And it’s all cleared away by nine! You and I
are on the dish-washing squad this week, I reckon. So we have a few
minutes’ grace.”
“I never washed a dish in my life,” said Anne peevishly. She was now
wide awake.
“It isn’t so bad when you do it together,” said Beverly, sitting up.
“We have jolly times in the out-door pantry.”
The woods were ringing with laughter and shouts. Evidently the
Twins were already up and doing, and Doughboy was helping them.
A clear tenor was singing “_There’s a long, long trail_,” to the
accompaniment of a wood-chopper’s axe. It was part of the boys’ job
to see that the wood-boxes were kept full and the fires laid, and
they usually elected to do most of such chores before breakfast.
Anne had just time to get into the brown middy costume like those the
other girls wore, which Tante had asked her to bring. She had never
put on anything like it before, and she hated the material and color.
But really she looked very nice in the woodsy brown, with her fair
skin and bobbed hair.
“You look more like a Dryad than any of us,” said Nancy approvingly
when Anne appeared for breakfast. And though Anne wasn’t quite sure
what a Dryad was, she thought by Nancy’s tone that it must be a nice
sort of creature, and was pleased.
“It is queer how this brown makes you feel like a part of the woods;
doesn’t it?” she said.
“Now you are a Round Robin!” said Tante, greeting her with a smile.
Breakfast was served on the veranda this beautiful morning, instead
of in the living room where they had supped. The long board on
trestles, such as the pioneers used, was set with plates and cups of
granite ware; twelve places, the sacred number. Tante poured the
steaming chocolate, which Gilda had made, at one end of the table.
And this morning it was the turn of Norma to serve at the other end.
Such delicious Belgian chocolate! Such eggs and rice in Italian
style as Norma had prepared! Up and down went the plates from hand
to hand, like an endless chain. For everybody was hungry as a bear.
Doughboy sat at a distance whining gently. He was learning good puppy
manners, the chief of which is patience. But Patsy had disappeared
like a white flash as soon as Tante had let him out, to get his own
breakfast of field-mice. Anne thought she had never tasted a better
breakfast.
“Now come on, dish-washers!” With much ceremony an apron and clean
dish towels were handed to Anne, and a dish mop to Beverly; and
presently, with no very good grace on her part, the Golden Girl was
initiated into the mysteries of a new job. Lucky it was that the
dishes were non-breakable! But Beverly chattered while the process
was going on, and the open-air pantry was a merry place.
“How do you like it so far as you have gone, Anne?” asked Nancy,
spoon in hand, poking her head out of the kitchen door.
“It seems queer to me,” said Anne, remembering to be sulky. “I can’t
get used to there being no servants.”
“I couldn’t at first,” confessed Beverly. “Down home even when we
go for a few days into the country we take Mammy and old Joe and
Mandy--she’s their daughter. You just ought to eat Mammy’s beaten
biscuits and fried chicken!”
“Are they black people?” asked Cicely Vane.
“Yes, certainly,” drawled Beverly. “All our servants are niggers.”
“Slaves, Beverly?” Freddie bounced suddenly into the conversation in
a way he had. Everybody laughed except Freddie and his Twin, who was
busy scraping out an empty jam-jar.
“Slaves!” cried Dick who was lugging in a pailful of water. “We don’t
have any slaves in America, don’t you know that, Kid? Why, we fought
a war to--” Dick’s voice trailed off into silence, and for once that
irrepressible boy looked confused. For Nancy was making frightful
faces at him to remind him of the forbidden subject. Once upon a time
Beverly’s grandfather had fought in that same war of which he spoke;
while Dick’s own grandfather and Nancy’s had fought on the other
side, to free the slaves. Those three young men had been college
chums before the war. Colonel Peyton, a gallant soldier, had died
for the cause he believed to be right. But the Union and Liberty had
triumphed. This was the reason why the Northerners had agreed, before
Beverly came, not to mention this subject while she was in camp.
“No, we haven’t any slaves in America, Freddie,” said Tante gently,
“though some unfair things are still done, which will have to be
corrected. But I believe nearly everybody in this land thinks alike
about slavery nowadays.”
“I reckon we do,” agreed Beverly. “You needn’t mind talking about
that war before me, Nancy. I’m not sensitive about that. And there’s
only one Union now, isn’t there?”
“That’s just what I said about your Revolution,” said Cicely. “We
can talk about anything, since we are all friendly, can’t we?”
“Of course we can!” nodded Tante. “That is why it is so nice for
different kinds of people to get together, always.”
“Heia! Hoia!” called a shrill voice in the woods. And down the path
came hurrying Nelly Sackett with a basket on her arm. She had run
most of the way from the Cove, and was quite breathless.
“I thought I’d never get here before you left!” she gasped. “Uncle
Eph was so late this morning. He’s been out hauling since four
o’clock, and has just got back. But here are your lobsters, Tante. I
boiled them myself before I came. I’m glad you waited.”
“Dick wouldn’t have had a clam-bake without you, Nelly,” said Tante.
“And anyway, we are not quite ready ourselves.”
“Dick has invited us all to a clam-bake,” Nancy explained to Anne.
“He has done his studying ahead and has a free morning.”
“I hate clams,” answered Anne with a wry face. “I think I won’t go to
the clam-bake.”
“Oh, very well.” Nancy’s voice was cool. “But I think you will be
sorry. We have great fun at our picnics, and this one is to be at a
new place that Dick has discovered. He and the Twins dug the clams
yesterday afternoon. Everybody is going; but you can stay and keep
house with Patsy, of course.”
Anne had no mind to be left alone in the camp, even with Patsy.
“Well, I suppose I had better go with you,” she said, rather
ungraciously.
“Where are your clams, Dick?” inquired Tante, hailing him as he was
starting down to the boat with his two swaggering partners, proud of
their importance on this occasion.
“Oh, they’re all right,” said Dick mysteriously. “I took good care of
them yesterday. Don’t worry; I didn’t leave them in the sun, Tante. I
was too clever for that. They are where they’d like to be. Say, there
are clams enough at that place to feed the whole United States, I do
believe! And all as happy as clams.”
Dick came from the far West, where his father had a ranch. Everything
about the sea was wonderful to him, and he was never tired of making
new discoveries and serving up old ones in a new dress.
Tante looked thoughtfully at Dick. “Of course you know all about
clam-bakes, Dick,” she said. “I know how you helped Cap’n Sackett
last week. But--hadn’t we better take some luncheon besides? We never
seem to have too much food on our picnics; and perhaps someone may
not care for clams.”
“Anne doesn’t,” Norma volunteered.
“All right.” Dick looked a little disappointed. “I thought we’d
got everything ready, and for once the girls needn’t bother. There
will be clams enough for everybody who likes them. But if anyone is
fussy--all right-o.”
“Lend a hand, girls,” said Tante. “We’ll put up some sandwiches and
eggs in a few minutes.”
After the sandwiches were made, and while they waited for the eggs to
hard-boil, Cicely went for the botany box which she always carried to
get “specimens”; and Nancy, hovering about the living room, finally
pounced on something for which she was looking.
“What’s that pill-box for, Nancy?” queried Eddie, the sharp-eyed.
“Well, if you must know, I’m going to hunt for some fern-seed,” said
Nancy rather shyly. “You know to-night is Midsummer Eve. If I find
some fern-seed I am going to try to become invisible.”
“Pooh!” cried Dick. “You are a goose, Nancy!” But just then Patsy
came scampering up in a wide circle and jumped on Nancy’s shoulder.
“You see, he knows!” she laughed. “He wants to go with me. My fairy
cat is full of mischief to-day. He acts perfectly wild. He knows it
is Midsummer Eve, don’t you, Patsy? But _you_ can see fairies without
fern-seed, I’m sure.”
“You don’t really believe----” began Anne. But she was interrupted
by a shout from the pier. “Hurry up, girls! Tide is just right! Oh,
Reddy!”
The Round Robin seized the baskets and wraps and hurried down the
slip where the _Togo_ was waiting. Tante and the Twins followed.
Doughboy made fourteen out of what Norma called an “unlucky number.”
Patsy was not invited. He was too “temperamental,” Dick declared. It
was a crowded boatful. But some of them sat on the floor and some
on the deck with their legs dangling over. While the Twins and the
pup chose their favorite safe place in the tiny cabin, and played at
being stowaways.
It was a good hour’s run across the Bay and up the entrance to a
creek which Dick the adventurous had discovered the week before. As
the boat entered the creek they saw the waves rushing in a mad race
to fill up the little basin before it should be high water; when they
would as madly begin to rush out again, after the excitable manner of
tides.
“It wasn’t like this yesterday afternoon,” said Dick proudly. “Why,
it’s finer even than I thought!”
“You came at low tide, you land-lubber,” said Hugh. “You forget the
difference the tide makes in morning and afternoon.”
A queer look came over Dick’s face. “That’s so,” he admitted. “But
isn’t this pretty?”
They agreed that it certainly was. Along the tide-rapids great rocks
were half-uncovered, and on these were little brown heads bobbing,
smooth grey bodies rolling over and over in ecstatic somersaults.
“Oh what is it? What is it?” cried the Twins, popping out of the
cabin when they heard the girls exclaim.
“It’s baby seals,” said Hugh. “They are doing their daily gymnastics,
just as you do, Kids. I expect it’s like the setting-up exercises we
had in the Army, eh, Victor?”
“I should call them sitting-down exercises,” laughed Victor.
“Maybe they are just breakfast rolls,” whispered Dick to Anne, who
giggled, in spite of Nancy’s growl of protest at such punning, which
the Club had agreed was not to be encouraged.
“What a place for a picnic!” cried Tante as they passed a beautiful
point where the water was most rapid and where a group of pines
overhung the tide, “Can’t we stop here, Dick?”
“Oh, no,” he assured her. “We have got to have the clam-bake where
the clams are. Wait till you see the beach! A great place for a
fire, as safe as snails. There’s the place, just beyond that rock!”
Just beyond the rock the boat drew up to the shore, a rock-strewn
beach with a spit of sand below, now covered by the high tide. Hugh
jumped out and held the boat for the rest to descend. “Fine!” said
he. “Where are your clams, Reddy?”
Dick stood looking at the beach dubiously. “Jiminy!” he exclaimed. “I
forgot about the tide! I dug the clams in the afternoon.”
“And we buried them in boxes down in the sand,” volunteered Eddie.
“So they would be happy and damp until picnic-time,” continued
Freddie. “Where are they now, Dick?”
“Where indeed!” cried Dick, mournfully. “Still happy and damp, I
guess.”
“_There once was a boy from the West_,” chanted Nancy, beginning a
limerick to celebrate the affair in Club style:
“_Who invited a Club as his guest,
To a clam-bake with pride;
But he left out the tide--_”
she hesitated for the last line--
“_And it played a low untidy jest!_”
Dick finished the limerick himself, amid applause and laughter. “How
long will it be before these clams are uncovered, Tante?” he asked
wistfully.
“It is high tide, now, and you can’t get at them for nearly six
hours,” she laughed.
Dick groaned. “Those inconsiderate old tides of yours!” he said.
“Now, out on the prairie you know where you are when you are there.
The grass doesn’t go ebbing and flowing down and up. It stays put. I
like solid ground, I do.”
“If you were only Moses now,” Nancy teased him, “you could perhaps
make the sea open and let you get at the clams.”
“Or if you were Joshua you could do something with the tide,”
suggested Victor.
“If your fairies were any good you’d make them get busy, Nancy,”
retorted Dick. “But as it is, I suppose we’ll just have to go home.”
“We’d all starve to death before six hours,” agreed Victor.
“Oh, no, we have a luncheon,” laughed Tante. “I had a vision that
something like this might happen. I brought bacon and the coffee pot.”
“Hurrah!” shouted the Twins, who had been looking very gloomy.
“I can fry bacon,” said Dick humbly, “if I am a duffer about tides.”
“All right. Let’s build a fire in this safe place, away from the
trees and grass.”
They scattered about for fire-wood, and presently they had a fine
blaze under the shelter of a big rock. “It is a beautiful place for a
picnic, Dick,” said Tante comfortingly. “I am sure the Indians would
have liked it themselves for a camp.”
“You’re right,” said Dick. “Your coast Indians did have some
advantage over our plain Indians, I’ll agree.”
“I’d like to stay here and live!” cried Norma, clasping her hands in
the dramatic way she had.
“Oh, Norma! With only the clams to listen to your music?” said
Beverly.
“Well, somebody else has thought as Norma does before now,” chuckled
Dick. “I haven’t shown all the wonders of my discovery yet. Look,
there’s sweet grass over in the bog behind the bank there. And great
tall sedges for baskets. Then look at this bank itself! See, it’s
made out of clam-shells. I think the Indians must have piled them
here, long ago.”
“It’s an old Indian shell-heap, by Jove!” exclaimed Hugh. “Reddy,
you’ve made a discovery after all. They must have been picnicking
here for generations before we were born, by the size of this heap.”
“I thought it was a pretty good place for a clam-bake,” said Dick
modestly. “Even if you don’t get your clams.”
While they waited for the coffee and bacon, some of them fell to
digging in the shell-heap. They found only a few charred bones, that
looked like bird-bones, and some bits of broken pottery. But even
these gave them a thrill. The Indians had been there! What had they
been doing? They could imagine all sorts of things.
They could hardly bear to stop digging even when the lunch call
sounded. But how good the coffee smelled and how delicious the bacon
tasted, as they sat around the bonfire which had died down to glowing
coals, and munched the luncheon that was an after-thought of Tante’s.
“I say!” cried Dick suddenly, with his mouth full of bacon, “I wonder
if we look like the bands of Fijis who used to camp here?’
“Fijis, you cowboy!” interrupted Hugh. “They were proper Penobscots
who owned this part of the world.”
“How I’d like to see them sitting around here, chucking their
clam-shells one by one onto that heap----”
“Unless they were waiting for the tide to go out, so they could get
the clams,” tittered Nancy. Dick shied a pebble at her and went on
with his word-picture.
“--Sitting around in a circle, gossiping about that gay little
massacre they had just pulled off on the island over there. _Wow!_”
Dick gave a western war-whoop that made the girls jump, and
Norma covered her ears with horror. Three crows arose protesting
frantically from some nook beyond the bank, and flapped away inland,
cawing bad luck to these invaders.
“Yes. I feel like an Indian myself!” volunteered Beverly
unexpectedly. “I had an ancestor who was an Indian, you know.
Pocahontas was her name.”
“Pocahontas!” several voices echoed the familiar name in wonder.
“I know about her!” chimed the Twins. “She ran out and saved Captain
Smith”--“from having his head cut off”--“no, from being roasted
alive!”
“Now I remember,” said Tante, “your mother’s family was very proud of
being descended from Captain Smith’s dusky friend, Beverly. So are
many of the old Virginian families. Pocahontas was a king’s daughter.
Better still, she was a generous, noble, loyal woman.”
“She married an Englishman named Rolfe, and went to live in London,”
added Cicely Vane. “I have seen her grave in a church in Gravesend.”
“She ought to have married Captain Smith,” said Norma, who was
romantic. “That would have been beautiful!”
“I reckon he was too old for her,” said Beverly. “She called him her
foster-father. I don’t know what those first Virginians would have
done without Pocahontas to keep the Indians friendly.”
“Say, isn’t it great to have a real Indian here!” cried Dick. “I
believe Beverly does look a little red, doesn’t she?”
Beverly certainly turned red as they all stared at her black hair and
eyes, her fine nose and high cheek-bones.
“I’d be proud to,” she said with dignity. “I always liked the
Indians. I think they were treated mighty meanly by the white folks,
North and South. You talk about the slaves!”
“Didn’t Indians scalp the white settlers?” “And burn them and torture
them?” The Twins had been hearing tales from Cooper told by Dick.
“Yes, they did,” admitted Beverly. “They didn’t know any better. The
white men cheated them; and _they_ knew better!”
“I’ve seen Indians around the Harbor sometimes,” volunteered Nelly
Sackett. “I didn’t think much of them; shiftless-looking people, with
baskets to sell.”
Just then Cicely, who was facing away from the others, caught Nancy’s
arm. “Look there!” she whispered pointing towards the woods behind
them.
Out of the shadow was creeping the strangest figure. A bent old
woman with a shawl drawn over her head and shoulders was approaching
cautiously. Her grey hair escaped in elf-locks, her cheeks were
wrinkled like the sand at low tide. She looked like a witch. On her
back was a great bundle of grass and reeds, tied with a rope. In her
hand was a canoe paddle. Around her neck dangled a chain of shells
and beads. She wore moccasins on her feet. She came toward the fire
with a grim, sulky look on her face, and her little sunken eyes
glanced from figure to figure warily. Eddie and Freddie shrank close
to their mother’s skirts. Dick uttered a low whistle.
[Illustration: look whispered Cicely.]
“You wanted to see an Indian,” whispered Hugh, “Well, here she is!”
Everybody sat quite still, while the old crone came close to the
group.
“How!” she said at last in a low grunt.
“Good day,” answered Tante pleasantly. “We are picnicking, as you
see, in this pretty place.”
“Heard war-whoop,” said the hag sullenly. “Came to see who is on the
land of my fathers.” Her look was a challenge. The party exchanged
glances. Here was a strange sequel to their talk!
“My father was Chief,” the old woman drew herself up with dignity.
“But I am all there is left of my tribe. All this land was ours,” she
waved her paddle, apparently indicating the whole shore of the bay.
“The white men took it from us. Now I have to get grass for baskets
where I can. That is all for me to do.”
“Have you baskets to sell?” asked Tante gently.
“Not here,” said the squaw. “But I make them. Sometimes.”
“Well, if you will bring some to us we would like to buy,” said
Tante.
“Mother!” Hugh tried to catch Tante’s eyes with a warning shake of
his head. But the old woman answered Tante quickly.
“Yes. I will come. Next week. You live over there?” she pointed in
the right direction. “I know.” She turned upon the young men with a
sudden snarl. “Why you make war-whoop? Eh?”
Dick stammered. “Oh--just for fun!” he said. There was a black look
in the old woman’s eyes and she muttered something below her breath.
When as suddenly she turned to go. Just then Freddie had an inspiring
thought.
“Beverly is an Indian, too!” he cried, pointing at the girl.
“Pocahontas was her grandmother.”
“Hush!” Dick jerked Freddie into silence.
“Pocahontas?” the old squaw repeated the name and eyed Beverly
strangely. “My name Sal Seguin.” They could not tell whether or not
she understood what Freddie had said. Beverly herself had nothing to
say.
“Ugh!” grunted the squaw at last. “White Indian? Ugh!” Whether in
disgust or pleasure, she shook her head once at Beverly. Then
without another word she disappeared up the bank.
“Well, you young monkey!” said Hugh to his little brother, “you did
make a hit, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t mind,” said Beverly. “Why should I? I will buy some baskets
of the poor old thing when she comes.” But Hugh looked troubled. “I’m
sorry she is coming to Round Robin, Mother!” he said. “I don’t like
the old party’s looks. She doesn’t resemble Beverly in the least!”
and he made a low bow to the Southerner.
“I’ve seen her before,” said Victor unexpectedly. “Once, when I was
picking strawberries away over on the mountain. And once when I
landed to take a look at the boat-house of Idlewild. She was prowling
about there.”
“I’ll tell Uncle Eph,” said Nelly. “He won’t like that.”
“Is she your grandmother, Beverly?” suddenly asked Eddie, who was
much confused by the previous remark of his twin.
“Will she join the Round Robin?” questioned Freddie. At that there
was a roar of laughter. But Hugh capped the laugh with a surprise.
“You girls needn’t laugh so hard,” said he. “For once Freddie has
said something not altogether foolish. Some of the Indians had a
Round Robin of their own--a ‘get together.’ The very first League of
Nations was American after all! The Five Nations of the Iroquois were
just that.”
“It has taken the world a good while to catch up with those savages!”
sighed Tante.
As the _Togo_ chug-chugged noisily home over the waves that
afternoon, the girls spied a birch canoe creeping silently along the
shore, propelled by experienced hands. And the canoe was filled with
bundles of green.
“I guess old Hoky-Poky had a profitable day,” chuckled Dick.
“Well, so have we, in spite of clams,” laughed Nancy. “Don’t you
think so, Anne?”
“It has been very pleasant,” said Anne with reserve as she stepped
ashore. “But that old woman made me nervous!”