Ha! ha! Master Fish, you have got your match at the other end of the line. Our Jem is an “old hand,” he knows all your wiles, and even now is pretending not to have the least idea you are in his power. Now he loosens; now tightens gently his line; slowly winds up; and now, with dexterous jerk, swings upon the sand a fine tautog, Newporters’ dainty breakfast. Yes; there is the poor fellow, with his fine, bright eyes, white skin and black scales, leaping in the air!
The sport went on. Tautog, scup, and sometimes a striped bass, lie quivering on the sand.
Bear asks Aunt Gertrude,—
“Why do they give the fish such a queer name as tautog?”
“It is from two Indian words—taut, which means rocks, and og, fish. This tautog hides among the rocks, when the tide comes in, to get away from the larger fish, who would eat him up. He lives mostly on sea plants and insects.”
“But don’t you think it seems cruel to kill the poor things?”
“Scarcely that, dear, for God has made them for our use. Don’t you remember our Saviour’s feeding the hungry multitude with loaves and fishes in the wilderness? The fish, in their turn, devour insects, and as they peep their heads above the waters to catch them, the instinct of the birds, which seems God’s voice in them, teaches them to watch for their appearance, dart down upon and devour them. But, see, Artie is beckoning for us, and here comes Nan to carry you up to the bake.”
For the sake of far-away children, who have never visited Narragansett shores, let me explain, that upon stones, which have been thoroughly heated, large quantities of sea-weed are thrown, and upon that, clams, oysters, and sometimes lobsters, chickens, sweet-potatoes, and corn are put.
After Jem had placed his clams and oysters on the sea-weed, the boys covered them up with more weed, and over the smoking mass placed a large piece of sail-cloth, from whose seams and cracks, ere long, came an odor which was well worth a journey from New York to inhale, for certainly there is nothing just like it. It will not be strange if ere long enterprising Rhode Island druggists send to the far-away cities bottles marked “Clam-bake Perfume,” which shall rival that of “Heliotrope” or “New Mown Hay.”
The table has been neatly prepared, Sarah’s broiled chickens are smoking there, and now every boy,