“I was hoeing beyond that clump of bushes,” said Daniel, pointing to a group of high blueberries that had been allowed to remain in the cleared field.

“And I was keeping away the crows,” said Nancy, holding out her wooden clappers.  “Only I fell asleep.  It was so warm I just could n’t help it.”

“So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth and thy want as an armed man,” quoted the mother sternly.  “Night is the time for sleep.  Go now and eat the porridge I have set for you in your little porringers, and then go down to the bay with this basket and fill it with clams.  Put a layer of seaweed in the basket first and pack the clams in that.  They will keep alive for some time if you bed them so, and be sure to bring back the shovel.”

This was a task that suited the Twins much better than either hoeing corn or scaring crows, and they ran into the house at once, ate their porridge with more haste than good manners, and dashed joyfully away across the fields toward the river-mouth, a mile away.  They followed a path across the wide stretch of pasture, where wild blackberry vines and tall blueberry bushes grew, then through a strip of meadow land, and at last ran out on the bare stretch of sand and weed left by the ebb tide toward the narrow channel cut by the clear water of the Charles.

Here they set down the basket and began looking about for the little holes which betray the hiding-places of clams.

[Illustration]

“Oh, look, Dan,” cried Nancy, stopping to admire the long line of foot-prints which they had left behind them.  “Dost see what a pretty border we have made?  ’T is just like a pattern.”  She walked along the edge of the stream with her toes turned well out, leaving a track in the sand like this: 

[Illustration]

Then the delightful flat surface tempted her to further exploits.  She picked up a splinter of driftwood and, making a wide flourish, began to draw a picture.  “See,” she called rapturously to Dan, “this is going to be a pig!  Here ’s his nose, and here ’s his curly tail, and here are his little fat legs.”  She clapped her hands with admiration.  “Now I shall do something else,” she announced as she finished the pig with a round red pebble stuck in for the eye.  “Let me see.  What shall I draw?  Oh, I know!  A picture of Gran’ther Wattles!  Look, Dan.”  She made a careful stroke.  “Here ’s his nose, and here ’s his chin.  They are monstrous near together because he has nothing but gums between!  And here ’s his long tithing-stick with the squirrel-tail on the end!”

[Illustration]

“It doth bear a likeness to him!” admitted Dan, laughing in spite of himself, “but, sister, thou shouldst not mock him.  He is an old man, and we should pay respect to gray hairs.  Father says so.”

“Truly I have as much of respect as he hath of hair,” answered naughty Nancy.  “His poll is nearly as bald as an egg.”