"The fire will burn down faster, now that the charcoal is scraped off," said Periwinkle.
The men worked for a long time, burning and scraping away, burning and scraping, until they had dug a little hollow all along the middle of the log.
Then one man said, "We have worked enough."
And the men dropped their scrapers and went off.
The next day Thorn walked along the beach and picked up pretty shells.
"These are for the folks at home," he said to Periwinkle. "They will put them on the strings around their necks."
"Here is my bow," he went on, handing it to Periwinkle. "You may keep it. I can make another. I am going back to my grandfather's now."
Periwinkle and Clam and some of the men went part way with Thorn. They walked for a long time through fir forests and then came to the forests of oak and beech and ash and chestnut. Here Thorn left his friends, and waved his arm to them as he ran on to his grandfather's. The shell people went back to their home by the sea.