The Puritan Twins

Goodwife Pepperell gazed long and earnestly in this direction, and then, making a trumpet of her hands, sent a call ringing across the silent fields. Nancy! Daniel! she shouted.

As no answering shout greeted her from this direction either, the Goodwife stepped quickly toward a hollow stump which stood a short distance from the cabin. Beside the stump a slender birch tree bent beneath the weight of a large circular piece of wood hung to its top by a leather thong. This was the samp-mill, where their corn was pounded into meal. Seizing the birch tree with her hands, she brought the wooden pestle down into the hollow stump with a resounding thump. The birch tree sprang back lifting the block with it and again she pulled it down and struck the stump another blow, then paused to listen. This time there was, beside the echo, an answering shout, and in a few moments two heads appeared above the rows of young corn just peeping out of the ground, two pairs of lively bare feet came flying across the garden patch, and a breathless boy and girl stood beside their mother.
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.
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.