He shook his head. "_I_ couldn't relieve it. I told you. I'll try
later--her last chance."
Elizabeth laughed. I was picking up a bushel basket filled with clams.
Clams are a heavy fruit. Ogilvie seized one handle.
"Here!" cried Elizabeth. "I'm going to take that side. I want to help
Adam. You go with Eve, Jack. She has something for you to carry."
Ogilvie protested, and so did I, but she was firm.
"I want to go with you, Adam. You needn't think I can't carry my side,
for I can."
So we set off, Eve and Jack Ogilvie with a market basket of clams and
various hoes, and Elizabeth and I carrying that bushel of clams between
us. Elizabeth was strong, I found, and sure-footed; surer than I. The
others came straggling after, carrying their loads.
"Elizabeth," I began, "what is the matter with Bobby?"
She smiled and turned to observe Bobby. "I'm sure I don't know. He seems
to be well occupied with Olivia." Then she changed suddenly. "That was
not honest, Adam," she said. "I do know, but it is nothing that I can
help. He will get over it in time--perhaps. I wish he would, for it is
not amusing as it is."
And she sighed softly, and then she smiled up at me. It was a brave
attempt, and almost a success.
"And Ogilvie?" I asked softly.
She laughed, and spoke low. "Jack has found a little yeogirl. He was
telling me about her. She is the loveliest thing that ever was, and the
sweetest and the gentlest. She may be all that, of course, but there are
some lovely, sweet, and gentle girls of his own kind. But, at any rate,
Olivia is nothing to him now. It has done him that much good already."
I was silent, thinking. I wondered how I should like it if Pukkie,
being of age and his own master, should elect a yeogirl to the high
place in his regard now held by his mother and me; should elect the
yeogirl to a higher place. It would be a blow. I could not deny it. But
we had been ascending the steep path, and we set our bushel of clams
beside the hole lined with stones and the slippery pile of brown
rockweed. I sighed as we set the basket down, and so did Elizabeth. Then
we both laughed.
"I'm glad that's done," said Elizabeth.
"Amen!" said I.
Then came Tom Ellis and Cecily, and set their basket down; and Tom,
without stopping, went to my pile of cordwood, and brought an armful and
laid the sticks in order on the stones.
"Come, Adam," he said, soberly. "Remember, it's my last clambake for
four years."
"Don't say it, Tom!" cried Cecily sharply. "I'll help you with your
wood."
So there was a procession of us going to the woodpile and back, and the
sticks were laid in order, three layers, on the stones; then another
layer of great stones, each stone as big as a football, on the top of
the wood. Then I came with a can of kerosene, and sprinkled the wood
liberally. Eve had some matches, and she held one out to Ogilvie.
"Light up, Ogilvie," said Tom. "It's your honor."
And Ogilvie lighted the pile, and Tom made some feeble joke about a
funeral pyre, and Cecily almost wept; and the fire blazed up fiercely,
and we all drew back. It was hot enough without the fire, and would
have been almost unbearable but for the southwest breeze which had
started up, and which was sweeping gently, over my bluff. And we watched
the fire, as anyone will watch any fire--there is fascination in it--but
they began to drift away--to get off their rubber boots and to prepare
themselves. No doubt they would have fasted if there had been time. And
at last there were left only Old Goodwin and Tom and Ogilvie and I. Eve
had gone into the house to fetch the things, and Cecily and Elizabeth
with her.
When the fire had burned long and the stones were hot, we raked the
ashes off; and shook down upon the stones fresh seaweed from the pile,
and on the seaweed laid the clams. Then more seaweed; and the other
things, in layers, orderly, with the clean, salt-smelling weed between;
then the loose stones, hot stone footballs, and over all we piled the
weed and made a dome that smoked and steamed and filled the air with
incense. And the others, having rested from their labors, leaning on
their forks or sitting on the ground, went their several ways; for they
would garb themselves.
Eve did not place her guests. She considered, a pretty thoughtfulness in
her eyes and about her mouth, and cast her place-cards in a little heap
on the table, saying that they might place themselves; for she did not
know what was going on, and feared to make a bad matter worse.
They did place themselves, after much hesitation and drifting about.
Elizabeth sat next to me. She seemed to think me a kind of refuge. And
Ogilvie sat at Eve's right,--she saw to that,--and Olivia next because
she could not help it, and then Bobby. Where the rest sat did not
matter. And Old Goodwin and Tom and I took our forks and opened the
smoking dome, and set upon the table chicken and fish and lobsters and
brown bread, and great pans of clams steaming in their gaping shells.
Then all would have set themselves to the business of eating; but I had
my instructions. I took an old dust-encrusted bottle from Eve's place,
and opened it, and went about and poured into the glasses luminous
golden stuff from that old bottle. Then Eve rose, and proposed
Ogilvie's health. And we all drank it, but Ogilvie flushed and did not
know what to do.
"Oh," he said to Eve, "I never had that done to me before."
And we all laughed, and fell to eating. We opened the clams with our
fingers, and took the clam by the head, and gave him a swirl in the
saucer of melted butter, and threw our heads back, and took his body
into our mouths, and bit him off and cast the head aside, and took the
next one. All there had had much experience in the process, and the
clams that had seemed enough for a regiment were soon eaten, and there
was a prodigious pile of shells under the table so that one could not
move his feet without rattling. And the lobsters were gone, and the
chickens, and most of the fish, and much of the brown bread. And first
one sat back with a sigh, and smiled, and then another; and at last all
were sitting, smiling at nothing and doing nothing else--all but Bobby
and Olivia. Bobby, it is true, had a smile graven upon his face, but it
was a smile of the face and not of the heart; and Olivia seemed out of
sorts and did not take the trouble to smile at all. And the bake was but
an empty wreck. Then Eve rose quietly, and they all got themselves
slowly upon their feet, and began to drift about the bluff.
My place is not very big, only the clipped lawn in front of the house,
and about an acre on the south side ending in the bluff, and a couple
of acres to the north, where lies my garden and the rest a hayfield. I
should have ploughed up that hayfield and put it into potatoes if I
could have found anybody to do the ploughing. But it is just as well as
a hayfield. Everybody has been planting potatoes this year. I almost
expect to see the gutters sprouting potatoes as I ride along with Old
Goodwin in his car. Potatoes will be cheap next winter. And if I had
ploughed up that field it would have been even less inviting for our
guests to wander over.
Not that any of them showed any disposition to wander over it. The older
ones seemed well content to settle down again under my pine, Bobby was
mooning alone at the edge of the bluff, Elizabeth was standing talking
with Jimmy Wales, and Jack Ogilvie was trying to persuade Olivia to walk
to a little clump of trees. I had seen Eve showing him the clump of
trees earlier in the day. At last they did walk off toward the trees,
Olivia obviously discontented and watching Bobby out of the corner of
her eye.
I drifted toward Eve, and she drifted toward me, and we came together,
which might be reprehensible but was not strange. We generally do come
together. She was clad all in light, filmy white, with two red roses at
her bosom, and her hair a glory. And her eyes--there are no other such
eyes as hers.
"Eve," I whispered, "do you want to be disgraced? How can you expect
anything else when you dress as you did for that other clambake that I
remember, and your eyes smiling, and that light upon your hair?"
It was more than her eyes that smiled as she looked at me.
"Yes," she whispered in return. "I want to be. Shan't I show you our
clump of trees?" She laughed as she finished.