"Come, Adam," he said, soberly. "Remember, it's my last clambake for four years."
"Don't say it, Tom!" cried Cecily sharply. "I'll help you with your wood."
So there was a procession of us going to the woodpile and back, and the sticks were laid in order, three layers, on the stones; then another layer of great stones, each stone as big as a football, on the top of the wood. Then I came with a can of kerosene, and sprinkled the wood liberally. Eve had some matches, and she held one out to Ogilvie.
"Light up, Ogilvie," said Tom. "It's your honor."
And Ogilvie lighted the pile, and Tom made some feeble joke about a funeral pyre, and Cecily almost wept; and the fire blazed up fiercely, and we all drew back. It was hot enough without the fire, and would have been almost unbearable but for the southwest breeze which had started up, and which was sweeping gently, over my bluff. And we watched the fire, as anyone will watch any fire—there is fascination in it—but they began to drift away—to get off their rubber boots and to prepare themselves. No doubt they would have fasted if there had been time. And at last there were left only Old Goodwin and Tom and Ogilvie and I. Eve had gone into the house to fetch the things, and Cecily and Elizabeth with her.
When the fire had burned long and the stones were hot, we raked the ashes off; and shook down upon the stones fresh seaweed from the pile, and on the seaweed laid the clams. Then more seaweed; and the other things, in layers, orderly, with the clean, salt-smelling weed between; then the loose stones, hot stone footballs, and over all we piled the weed and made a dome that smoked and steamed and filled the air with incense. And the others, having rested from their labors, leaning on their forks or sitting on the ground, went their several ways; for they would garb themselves.
Eve did not place her guests. She considered, a pretty thoughtfulness in her eyes and about her mouth, and cast her place-cards in a little heap on the table, saying that they might place themselves; for she did not know what was going on, and feared to make a bad matter worse.
They did place themselves, after much hesitation and drifting about. Elizabeth sat next to me. She seemed to think me a kind of refuge. And Ogilvie sat at Eve's right,—she saw to that,—and Olivia next because she could not help it, and then Bobby. Where the rest sat did not matter. And Old Goodwin and Tom and I took our forks and opened the smoking dome, and set upon the table chicken and fish and lobsters and brown bread, and great pans of clams steaming in their gaping shells. Then all would have set themselves to the business of eating; but I had my instructions. I took an old dust-encrusted bottle from Eve's place, and opened it, and went about and poured into the glasses luminous golden stuff from that old bottle. Then Eve rose, and proposed Ogilvie's health. And we all drank it, but Ogilvie flushed and did not know what to do.
"Oh," he said to Eve, "I never had that done to me before."