The Puritan Twins | Page 2

would she have let them see it; much less would she have
owned it to herself, for she was a Puritan mother, and regarded pride of
any kind as altogether sinful. "Where have you been all the morning?"

she said. "You were nowhere to be seen and the corn is not yet high
enough to hide you."
"I was hoeing beyond that clump of bushes," said Daniel, pointing to a
group of high blueberries that had been allowed to remain in the
cleared field.
"And I was keeping away the crows," said Nancy, holding out her
wooden clappers. "Only I fell asleep. It was so warm I just could n't
help it."
"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:

[Illustration]
Then the delightful flat surface tempted her to further exploits. She
picked up a splinter of driftwood and, making a wide flourish, began to
draw a picture. "See," she called rapturously to Dan, "this is going to be
a pig! Here 's his nose, and here 's his curly tail, and here are his little
fat legs." She clapped her hands with admiration. "Now I shall do
something else," she announced as she finished the pig with a round red
pebble stuck in for the eye. "Let me see. What shall I draw? Oh, I know!
A picture of Gran'ther Wattles! Look, Dan." She made a careful stroke.
"Here 's his nose, and here 's his chin. They are monstrous near together
because he has nothing but gums between! And here 's his long
tithing-stick with the squirrel-tail on the end!"
[Illustration]
"It doth bear a likeness to him!" admitted Dan, laughing in spite of
himself, "but, sister, thou shouldst not mock him. He is an old man, and
we should pay respect to gray hairs. Father says so."
"Truly I have as much of respect as he hath of hair," answered naughty
Nancy. "His poll is nearly as bald as an egg."
"I know the cause of thy displeasure," declared Dan. "Gran'ther Wattles
poked thee for bouncing about during the sermon last Sunday. But it is
unseemly to bounce in the meeting-house, and besides, is he not the
tithing-man? 'T is his duty to see that people behave as they should."
"He would mayhap have bounced himself if a bee had been buzzing
about his nose as it did about mine," said Nancy, and, giving a vicious
dab at the pictured features, she drew a bee perched on the end of
Gran'ther Wattles's nose. "Here now are all the gray hairs he hath," she
added, making three little scratches above the ear.
"Nancy Pepperell!" cried her brother, aghast, "dost thou not remember
what happened to the forty and two children that said 'Go up, thou bald
head' to Elijah? It would be no marvel if bears were to come out of the
woods this moment to eat thee up!"

[Illustration]
"'T was n't Elijah, 't was Elisha," Nancy retorted with spirit, "but it
matters little whether 't was one or t' other, for I don't believe two bears
could possibly hold so much, and besides dost thou not think it a deal
worse to cause a bear to eat up forty and two children than to say 'Go