DIGGING CLAMS

Though there were so many interesting things to see and learn by the seashore, it was also an ideal place for play, and just now it seemed to our boy and girl as though nothing else could compare with it.

Clam-digging was such sport. Captain Hawes took them down at low tide to the soft mud and showed them how to dig the clams. And then the fun of roasting them in the driftwood fire, and the picnic clam-bakes, with the delicious chowder!

It was here the children met a future playmate, Patsey Quinn. Captain Hawes jokingly called him a little water-rat, for Patsey had been brought up along the shore and knew all about things. He proved to be a most valuable companion to Bob and Betty, and the Captain could trust him to look after them, for of course he knew just what was safe and what wasn't.

He took them on many expeditions along the beach, knew just where the best clams and mussels were to be found, and where the crabs lived, and how to catch them. Wading among the seaweed-covered rocks they had lively times, occasionally getting their toes or fingers nipped, for crabs object to being caught.

Patsey taught his new friends how to fish, though they never got to be as good fishermen as he was. They seemed to catch more sculpins than anything else, and though sculpins were wonderful looking creatures they were not, Patsey explained, very good eating; flounders and eels were better. But Betty was afraid of eels. They squirmed so.

The seaweeds and shells interested the children, and the many-colored pebbles, so nice and round, from being rolled by the sea, Patsey knowingly explained.

He showed them how to throw flat stones along the surface of the water, until they, too, could make them skip a number of times before sinking.

There was no end to the variety of amusements; every day seemed to bring forth new ones, and the sunburned, healthy children enjoyed it all to the full.