Part 12 (1/2)
”I think I like it best,” said Lois, laughing a little; ”but we go for clams.”
”Can you get them yourself?”
”Certainly! It is great fun. While you go to drive in the Park, we go to dig clams. And I think we have the best of it too, for a stand-by.”
”Do tell me about the clams.”
”Do you like them?”
”I suppose I do. I do not know them. What are they? the usual little soup fish?”
”I don't know about soup fish. O no! not those; they are _not_ the sort Mrs. Wishart has sometimes. These are long; ours in the Sound, I mean; longish and blackish; and do not taste like the clams you have here.”
”Better, I hope?”
”A great deal better. There is nothing much pleasanter than a dish of long clams that you have dug yourself. At least we think so.”
”Because you have got them yourself!”
”No; but I suppose that helps.”
”So you get them by digging?”
”Yes. It is funny work. The clams are at the edge of the water, where the rushes grow, in the mud. We go for them when the tide is out. Then, in the blue mud you see quant.i.ties of small holes as big as a lead pencil would make; those are the clam holes.”
”And what then?”
”Then we dig for them; dig with a hoe; and you must dig very fast, or the clam will get away from you. Then, if you get pretty near him he spits at you.”
”I suppose that is a harmless remonstrance.”
”It may come in your face.”
Mr. Dillwyn laughed a little, looking at this fair creature, who was talking to him, and finding it hard to imagine her among the rushes racing with a long clam.
”It is wet ground I suppose, where you find the clams?”
”O yes. One must take off shoes and stockings and go barefoot. But the mud is warm, and it is pleasant enough.”
”The clams must be good, to reward the trouble?”
”We think it is as pleasant to get them as to eat them.”
”I believe you remarked, this sport is your subst.i.tute for our Central Park?”
”Yes, it is a sort of a subst.i.tute.”
”And, in the comparison, you think you are the gainers?”
”You cannot compare the two things,” said Lois; ”only that both are ways of seeking pleasure.”