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.”