The Puritan Twins | Page 3

up, thou bald head'?"
"Nancy!" exclaimed her horrified brother, glancing fearfully toward the
forest and clapping his hand on her mouth to prevent further impiety,
"thou art a wicked, wicked girl! Dost thou not know that the eye of the
Lord is in every place? Without doubt his ear is too, and He can hear
every word thy saucy tongue sayeth. Come, let us rub out this naughty
picture quickly, and mayhap God will take no notice this time." He ran
across Gran'ther Wattles's portrait from brow to chin, covering it with
foot-prints. "Besides," he went on as he trotted back and forth, "thou
hast broken a commandment! Thou hast made a likeness of something
that 's in the earth, and that 's Gran'ther Wattles! Nancy, thou dost take
fearful chances with thy soul."
Nancy began to look a little anxious as she considered her conduct. "At
any rate," she said defensively, "it is n't a graven image, and I have
neither bowed down to it nor served it! I do try to be good, Dan, but it
seemeth that the devil is ever at my elbow."
[Illustration]
"'T is because thou art idle," said Dan, shaking his head as gravely as
Gran'ther Wattles himself. "Busy thyself with the clams, and Satan will
have less chance at thy idle hands, and thy idle tongue too."
Nancy obediently took hold of the basket which Dan thrust into her
hands, and together they walked for some distance over the sandy
stretches. Suddenly a tiny stream of water spouted up beside Dan's feet.
"Here they be!" he shouted, plunging his shovel into the sand, "and
what big ones!" Nancy surveyed the clams with disfavor. They were
thrusting pale thick muscles out between the lobes of their shells. "They
look as if they were sticking out their tongues at us," said Nancy as she

picked one up gingerly and dropped it into the basket. "But, Dan,
Mother said we were to bed them in seaweed!"
"I see none here," said Dan, leaning on his shovel and looking about
him. "The tide hath swept everything as clean as a floor."
"I 'll seek for some while thou art busy with the digging," said Nancy,
glad to escape the duty of picking up the clams, and off she trotted
without another word. The flats, seamed and grooved with channels
where pools of water still lingered, sloped gently down to the lower
level of the bay, and farther out a range of rocks lifted themselves
above the sandy waste.
[Illustration]
"I 'll surely find seaweed on the rocks," thought Nancy to herself as she
sped along, and in a few moments she had reached them, had tossed up
the basket, and was climbing their rugged sides.
"There 's a mort o' seaweed here," she said, nodding her head wisely as
she picked up a long string of kelp; "I can fill my basket in no time at
all." There was no need for haste, she thought, so she sat down beside a
pool of water left in a hollow of the rocks, to explore its contents. The
first thing she found was a group of tiny barnacles, and for a while she
amused herself by washing salt water over them to see them open their
tiny cups of shell. In the pool itself a beautiful lavender-colored
jelly-fish was floating about, and just beyond lay a star-fish clinging to
a bunch of seaweed. She found other treasures scattered about by the
largess of the tide--tiny spiral shells, stones of all colors, and a
horseshoe crab, besides seaweed with pretty little pods which popped
delightfully when she squeezed them with her fingers. Then she heard
the cries of gulls overhead and watched them as they wheeled and
circled between her and the sky. When they flew out to sea she sat with
her hands clasping her knees and gazed across the bay at the three hills
of Boston town. She could see quite plainly the tall beacon standing
like a ship's mast on top of Beacon Hill, and farther north she strained
her eyes to pick out Governor Winthrop's dwelling from the cluster of
houses which straggled up the slope of Copp's Hill and which made all

there was of the city of Boston in that early day.
[Illustration]
For some time she sat there hugging her knees and thinking long, long
thoughts, and it was not until the sound of little waves lapping against
the rocks roused her that she woke from her day dream and realized
with terror that the tide had turned. The channels and lower levels of
the bay were already brimming over, and the water was deep about the
rocks on which she perched. At almost the same moment Dan had been
surprised by a cold