"Too bad," he said. "Mother liked that bowl. She made it herself, of clay, and dried it by the fire."
[Illustration: Clay bowls]
"Of clay!" Thorn said, looking at pieces wonderingly. "I never saw a bowl like that."
Periwinkle threw the oyster shells and pieces of broken bowl up on the shell heap. "We throw all such things in a heap," he said. "Then they are out of the way and will not cut our feet."
After working for days and days, the men got the tree for the dug-out hacked down. Then they hacked off a log and dragged it down to the shore. Here they began to make the dug-out.
They built a fire all along the top of the log. It burned down slowly. The men watched the fire and kept putting on more sticks. If it burned too near the edge, they put on water or clay or wet moss to stop it.
"You see, they burn out only the middle of the log and leave good strong thick sides to the boat," said Periwinkle.
After the fire had burned down into the log a way, the men raked off the hot coals. The wood beneath was burned to charcoal. The men scraped it off with stone scrapers. Then they put on more fire and again burned the log.