It wasn’t hard to do. Each wave that rolled upon the beach left two or three of the queer little creatures, but one had to grab very quickly for the instant the water receded and left them stranded on the sand, they began to dig themselves in. Mary Jane grabbed at the sand and as fast as she caught a crab she dropped it into Alice’s cap.
“Don’t they make your hands feel funny?” she asked as she held one a second more than she needed to. “I don’t know if I like them and I don’t know if I don’t.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed Alice. “I know I don’t like to hold them but I do like to watch them dig. Come on, sis, we’ve a lot. Let’s go back to mother and let ’em hide.”
They raced back to where Mrs. Merrill had been sitting and dumped their trophies on the sand one at a time. And it really was funny to see those wiggling little crawdads squirm themselves out of sight in the sand in such a jiffy! Just a wiggle, wiggle, wiggle and they were gone—the sand closed up over them as though they had never been there. Mary Jane tried to poke her finger down into the sand and dig them up; but the crawdads were too smart for her and not a one did she find!
“Why don’t you collect some shells to take home,” suggested Mrs. Merrill after awhile; “there are many pretty kinds here.”
“I know it, Mother,” answered Alice, “and I was just going to ask you if we could take any home when Mary Jane found these crawdads. Let’s start now.”
But just at that minute the whistle on the bath house blew for one o’clock—the girls hadn’t guessed it was nearly that late and of course the minute they knew the time they were starving hungry.
“Then let’s take one more dip to get the sand off,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, “before we dress and have lunch. And while our suits dry, you may collect all the shells you are willing to carry.”
Down into the water they ran and just in time too for when they heard a noise they looked up from the water and there, coming quickly to the earth, was a great aeroplane that landed right at the very spot where they had been sitting.
“I do think this is the excitingest beach,” said Mary Jane in an awestruck voice; “first there’s the ocean and then there’s crawdads and then an airship. What do you suppose they’ll have next?”