Part 26 (1/2)

”Oh, it is all right when you get used to it,” said Mrs. Brown, laughing. ”Have you enough clams, Bunny?”

”Not quite,” he answered. ”I like lots of 'em in my chowder.”

”Well, you may dig a few more. We'll sit here and wait for you,” said his mother, and, finding a place on sh.o.r.e where a clump of trees gave a little shade, she and Mrs. Slater sat down.

Bunny, Sue, and Harry kept on digging, Sue finally insisting on taking a turn with the shovel.

”I'm coming to the seash.o.r.e every year,” declared Harry, as he dug out an extra large clam. ”I guess my dog would like it here, too. He's fond of water.”

”Where is your dog?” asked Bunny. ”I didn't see you have any.”

”We didn't bring him with us 'cause he's lost,” said Harry, leaning on his shovel. ”He's an awful nice dog, too. We were going to bring him here with us, but one day, when we were out in the automobile, he jumped out and ran away and we never saw him again.”

”We had a dog Splash, and he ran away, too,” said Sue.

”My dog would carry things in his mouth,” went on Harry. ”He used to carry our paper, and sometimes he would take things you didn't want him to, and carry them away.”

”Oh, Bunny!” suddenly exclaimed Sue, ”that's just what the big yellow dog did. He took mother's pocketbook when we didn't want him to and carried it away. Maybe this is the same dog!”

”What kind of a dog was yours?” asked Bunny of his new friend.

”He was a big yellow one,” was the answer. ”But he was never here in this place, 'cause we were never here ourselves before this summer. So he couldn't have taken your mother's pocketbook.”

”But the pocketbook wasn't taken from here,” said Bunny. ”It was where we live--in Bellemere. And it was a big, yellow dog! Could your dog run fast?” he asked Harry.

”Oh, yes, terribly fast. But what's that about your mother's pocketbook?”

Bunny and Sue told the story by turns, how they had seen the dog running away with the pocketbook containing the five-dollar bill and their mother's diamond ring.

”And he ran into a carpenter shop, and we ran in after him, and Mr.

Foswick locked us in, and Bunny broke a window, and we had a terrible time!” explained Sue.

”I don't believe that was my dog,” said Harry. ”But Sandy--that was my dog's name--would carry away lots of things in his mouth. I wish I had him back. My father said he'd give a lot of money to find him--a reward, you know.”

”And I guess my father would give a reward if he could get back my mother's diamond ring,” added Sue. ”But he can't. Bunker Blue says it's gone forever.”

”Children! Children!” called Mrs. Brown from the sh.o.r.e. ”I think we had better go now. It is getting late and it looks as if we might have another storm. Come along. You have clams enough.”

”Yes, I guess we have,” said Bunny, looking in the basket.

The children started for the mainland, stopping in a little pool to wash the mud off themselves and also to cleanse their shovels.

Bunny ”sozzled” the basket of clams in the water to wash them, and when Mrs. Brown explained how she made them into chowder Mrs. Slater remarked:

”I wish they served that at the hotel.”

”Won't you and Harry come over and have supper with us this evening?”