"Grandfather will give him a job carrying milk then," Elizabeth said. "Won't that be fine?"
"It seems to me that you children are quite practical philanthropists. I think you are doing wonders for the Steppes."
"It's all Elizabeth," Tom said, "she's the one that got us all thinking of it. What I came in this morning for is this, Mrs. Swift. Our family is going to give a big, old-fashioned clambake on the beach the first pleasant day after Monday, and we wanted—that is, I did—we thought perhaps Peggy and Elizabeth might like to come. It'll be great fun. Bill and I are going to help dig the clams. Of course it's just a family affair, and I don't know whether Father knows you are in town, Mrs. Swift, but I am sure if you would like to come, too, we should all be so very glad. We thought of Elizabeth and Peggy first, you see." Tom was very confused.
"That's very kind of you, Tom, but I shouldn't be able to go. I am expecting my husband and my sick son almost any day now, and my object in coming ahead of them is to get everything in running order for them, but I am sure Elizabeth would be delighted to go, and I should be very glad for her to."
"Oh, thank you. Mrs. Farraday said that Peggy could come if Elizabeth could. I think it will be pretty good sport. It will be a regular, old-fashioned clambake, you know, with the clams banked in bricks and sand, and all the things wrapped in seaweed and steamed in—in their own steam. We have one every year, and some of our family comes from a long way to be there."
"I think it will be beautiful," Elizabeth said. "I am so glad Mummy will let me go."
"I wish I had my twenty-seven white horses," she sighed, as she watched Tom's retreating figure. "He's nice mannered, isn't he? He always whips off his hat at the gate, just like that. He'd count for one red-head so nicely. I got my ninety-nine Negroes, but the white horses are very hard to get. I've only got four and a half, and I'm not sure it wasn't the same white horse all the time."
"Four and a half white horses?" Mrs. Swift looked up inquiringly.
"A white goat. That's what I mean by half. We saw him one way down in Chatham. I don't really mean to count him unless we get desperate. I don't suppose it's quite fair."
"We have to make a good many compromises in this day and age, but it doesn't seem to me that a goat would make an efficient substitute for a horse. Why stop there? Why not a pig or a bear?"