"So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth and thy want as an
armed man," quoted the mother sternly. "Night is the time for sleep.
Go now and eat the porridge I have set for you in your little
porringers, and then go down to the bay with this basket and fill it
with clams. Put a layer of seaweed in the basket first and pack the
clams in that. They will keep alive for some time if you bed them so,
and be sure to bring back the shovel."

This was a task that suited the Twins much better than either hoeing
corn or scaring crows, and they ran into the house at once, ate their
porridge with more haste than good manners, and dashed joyfully away
across the fields toward the river-mouth, a mile away. They followed a
path across the wide stretch of pasture, where wild blackberry vines
and tall blueberry bushes grew, then through a strip of meadow land,
and at last ran out on the bare stretch of sand and weed left by the
ebb tide toward the narrow channel cut by the clear water of the
Charles.

Here they set down the basket and began looking about for the little
holes which betray the hiding-places of clams.

[Illustration]

"Oh, look, Dan," cried Nancy, stopping to admire the long line of
foot-prints which they had left behind them. "Dost see what a pretty
border we have made? 'T is just like a pattern." She walked along the
edge of the stream with her toes turned well out, leaving a track in
the sand like this: