CHAPTER XX
Trained Clams
There was no more digging done that afternoon, although Bee returned to the scene of operations and, seating himself with his feet in a trench, spent a full half-hour ruminating amongst the ruins, as Jack put it. Bill Glass had somewhat tarnished their enthusiasm. If the locality had already been dug up at least once what was the use of doing it again. Bee came back to the tent finally to lend a hand at the supper preparations, acknowledging himself “quite discouraged.”
The sun had worked down behind a mass of sullen, coppery-gray clouds by the time the fire was started and Jack, feeling of the air, as Bee called it, shook his head and predicted bad weather on the morrow. “I don’t believe we will be able to do any work, fellows,” he said. “Looks to me like a good big gale coming. Perhaps, if it isn’t bad in the morning, we might go home and wait for it to pass.”
“I’d like to be here in a gale,” said Bee. “I should think it would be stunning.”
“Ye-es, but a tent, even a rain-proof one, isn’t exactly the place to stay in a nor’easter, especially if it hangs on for a couple of days, as it’s quite likely to.”
“Me for home and mother,” declared Hal. “Why not make it tonight?”
“Oh, shucks, there isn’t going to be any storm!” Bee scoffed. “Look at that sunset! Besides, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, except a few over there in the west. If it looks bad in the morning we’ll go back, but don’t let’s spoil a jolly evening. How are you going to cook those clams, Jack?”
“In wet seaweed, and you’re going to get the seaweed,” replied the chef. Jack put the water on to boil and then took the clams down to the beach. Under his direction Bee and Hal set about gathering seaweed and driftwood, while Jack scooped a shallow bowl in the sand and set a few stones about the edge. In this a fire was started, and, leaving the others to keep it going, Jack returned to his “stove” at the tent. Up there he boiled the tea, emptied the contents of a can of baked beans into a frying pan and cut the bread. When he got back to the fire on the beach it was a roaring pit of flames, and Hal and Bee, panting and perspiring, were lying at a respectful distance, resting from their exertions. Jack searched until he found a pole and with it poked at the fire until Bee protested.
“We’ve nearly killed ourselves building that,” he said, “and now you’re simply ruining it. First thing you know it will get peevish and bite you, Jack.”