Janet had wanted to add a big red crab, like the one that nipped Peggy, but Peggy wouldn’t have it. There were some limpets, in their little pyramid-shaped shells, and then Janet had added a lot of seaweed of different kinds. Some of it was slimy green stuff, like long green hair, which Peggy didn’t at all admire; but there were pretty feathery pink weed and nice brown dulse.
“I wonder if James could get a flounder,” Janet said thoughtfully.
Peggy asked what a flounder was, and Janet said it was the kind of flat little fish Peggy had had fried for breakfast that morning.
“They’re ill to catch,” she added. “But maybe James could get ye ane.”
“Oh, a fish—a real live fish—in my tub would be so delicious!” cried Peggy.
She ran off to beg James to try to catch one for her; and James, who was very obliging, went off once again to the shore with a pail in search of a flounder.
Peggy stood and watched him for quite half an hour as he went slowly across the sands, stooping over each pool to see if there were flounders in it.
At last he came back, and Peggy scarcely liked to ask him whether he had got one, for she felt it would be so disappointing if he hadn’t—her collection would be quite incomplete. But James was grinning with pleasure, and he showed her two nice brown flounders in the pail.
“Oh, they are flat!” cried Peggy.