“Please, sir,” Tess ventured, “will you tell us what grows down under this sand and squirts water up at us through such a teeny, weeny hole?”
The man was a very weather-beaten looking person, with his shirt open at the neck displaying a brawny chest. He smiled down upon the girls.
“How’s that, shipmet?” he asked, in a very husky voice. “Show me them same holes.”
The sisters led the way, and the very saltish man followed. It was not until then that Tess and Dot noticed that one of his legs was of wood, and he stumped along in a most awkward manner.
“Hel-lo!” growled the man, seeing the apertures in the sand. “Them’s clams, an’ jest what I’m arter. By your lief——”
He struck the rake down into the sand just beyond one of the holes and dug quickly for half a minute. Then he tossed out of the hole he had dug a nice, fat clam.
“There he be, shipmets,” declared the clam-digger, who probably had a habit of addressing everybody as “shipmate.”
“Oh—but—did he squirt the water up at us, sir?” gasped Dot.
The wooden-legged man grinned again and seized the clam between a firm finger and thumb. When he pinched it, the bivalve squirted through its snout a fine spray.
“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Tess, drawing back.