"I guess that's what's the matter with him," Elizabeth smiled at him.
"All right," Tom said in an undertone. "I'll come out of it—for you."
"It was me that you went into it for," Elizabeth whispered, saucily.
The Steppe children in a comparatively decorous row were much more nearly a social success than on their first public appearance. They ate steadily and conscientiously, and their table manners compared not unfavourably with those of the other children of the party. Most of these ate with their parents. Two boys of thirteen, twins, and two girls a little younger than Peggy and Elizabeth were at the low table, at the end of the two long rows of family tables that Tom had designed for his guests.
"Bet you I can eat more clams than you can," Bill challenged Peggy.
"I hope you can," said Peggy, "my idea is to go easy on the clams, eat two sweet potatoes, one lobster, a soupçon of bluefish, all the corn I can hold, because that's the best of all, with that grand, sea-weedy taste it's got, and this lovely, gooey, trickly butter. Then I shall really fill up on cake and pie. I'm not going to eat any bread, because that takes room."
"You are going to eat watermelon?" Bill asked, anxiously.
"I'm going to take one of those boatshaped pieces and get in," Peggy said.
"The beauty of this party," Bob Stoddard said, "is that you can treat everything like that. You can snuggle right down into all the edibles."
"I'm snuggling into my clams," Elizabeth said. "Isn't it funny that the clams you get in New York are so distinct from these clams? They are just like different animals."