Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1919 — Clams [ARTICLE]

Clams

By DORA MOLLAN

(Copyright, 1919, by th, MfiSSS Newspaper Syndicate.) "By golly!” suddenly exclaimed Doris from where she stood by the window, "IT thin j.'b t ‘ i‘d •'’Onn there won’t be' a darn left lb the" cove!” “Doris I” came the reproachful voice of her mother, "please don’t use such unladylike words." “Find me one as expressive and I won't,” responded the irrepressible Doris, “I'm dying for some clams, and those laborers laying the new gas pipes are just digging them all up before I get a look-in.” “But they are busy putting in the pipes, aren't they, dear?” mildly queried Doris' mother, “How can they dig clams at the same time?” “Oh, they're Just stalling on the Job. mother, waiting for some more pipe. The little foreman told me so yesterday. Meanwhile they’re Just digging up all the dams.” ~ “Doris,” the mother again started to remonstrate with her lively young daughter, but as often happened, that same daughter took the words from her mouth. “I know, mother, what you’re going to say—‘Please don’t go around talking to that strange young man.’ You needn’t worry. I’ve only Been one worth speaking to since we came—and he was clamming, too.. Came from over across the cove somewhere. Got a lot, too. If he’d had any decency he’’d have offered me some. Goodness knows I hinted broadly enough.” The little mother remarked tn a re signed tone: “He thought you were a child, probably, with your bobbed hair and that short, red skirt." "I should worry what he thought; he’s some country clam himself,” Doris replied, laughingly. “All the same, I wish my boots would arrive, tk was so stupid of us to forget them.” Then speculatively: “That water’s too cold tb go Into barelegged.”

"I should say so,” the mother made haste to reply. “Doris,. don’t you think of such a thing.” “No, mother, I won't,” dutifully spoke the daughter, busily scheming In her Impatient young head some way of getting over those clam flats, where at the moment several Italians were industriously digging. Now, Mrs. Dart, Doris’ mother, had purposely omitted packing those boots; She had a rather guilty feeling all day, as Doris watched-for the parcels post. This clever, up-to-date young daughter was rather beyond the old-fashioned mother. She was proud of her, of course, for didn’t that same cleverness enable Doris to “hold up the government at the rate of thirty-five per, with a month’s vacation,” as Doris herself expressed it? And didn’t that weekly thirty-five’ make possible the yearly vacations at the shore, even if sometimes they had to come at an unheard-of early date? But oh dear! if the child would only care about clothes like other girl* and not insist on bobbing her hair with the ridiculous excuse that it saved time. - - And then those awful knickers—and boots—that she insisted on wearing out fishing and clamming! But Mrs. Dart preferred not to think about them. Doris was a wizard at finding a way out of a dilemma. Probably that was why she succeeded s’o well in business. The only way out of her present one, she was over a bridge farther up the cove. This bridge had been started with a flourish by some bunko amusement, company and finished in a fizzle. It lacked five feet of reaching the flat island in the. center of .the cove. But on that island were clams —that could be gotten at without the aid-of boots. So on the following day, .no boots haying arrived and low tide coinciding with her mother’s rest hour,sports got into the obnoxious knickers and. armed with short-handled hoe and a bag. walked over the unfinished bridge, took a flying downward leap—and

there she was! The clams were *plentiful. This was a place the laborers had not hit upon. Doris dug and dug. and the tide crept up and Tip. Clam digging is a timeconsuming work; so when the bag was nearly filled the strenuous young lady was relieved to find by a glance at her watch, that it was not quite time for her mqther’s nap to be over. But nt the bridge she found, somewhat To her dismay, ten feet of water, shallow to be sure, but growing deeper every moment between the low shore and the much higher end of the bridge. “Time and tide." quoted Doris, ruefully, as she started bravely through It. The water was knee deep when she managed to throw the bag up onto the bridge; but getting herself up was qftite another proposition. The sand was soft and her feet sank into it. Doris didn’t give up easily once she started to do a thing, but when her feet grew numb She accepted the fritility of further effort and waded back to the island. No one was in sight. Even the laborers had gone home. A loud “Helio! brought the little mottibr running from the cottage and out onto the bridge, but she was powerless to help. In the tower windows of a large house situated some distance across the cove a young man, with th£,gid of binoculars, watched the maneuvers of a geaplnne,out- On the bay. It disappeared up the river, and the watcher,

taking the glasses from hi# eye#, glanced Indifferently over the Immediate landscape.“Hello! There’# that kid digging clams down on the Island.” He brought the glasses Into play Just as Dori# started for the bridge, and laughed a# she made the first unsuccessful attempt to gain the structure. But when the second and third ended in failure his face sobered. '‘She’s mighty plucky, anyway; looks like It’s up to me t<> get a boat out and give her a lift.” Mrs. Dart spied the young man running down toward the cove and pointed at him. Doris ran over to that side of the island. As the boat approached she recognized the occupant a# the “clam-man.” “Hello, there!” he called up cheerily ; “you seem to be In a pickle. Belong on the other side of the cove, don’t you? Hop in and I'll take you around. How did you get here, anyway?” “Jumped off the bridge," returned Doris shortly, for on close view her keen eyes noticed that his corduroy suit and gray flannel shirt were of the finest quality. Her rescuer’s thoughts ran something like this: “Pretty as well as plucky —and older than I thought.” Mrs. Dart’s anxiety over her daughter’s plight had obliterated from her consciousness the abhorrence of knickers. Now. ns she stood on the shore where the skiff was making Its landing, she became acutely aware of them. Her voice held-more than motherly anxiety when she said : “Hurry right Into the house, child, and put on some dry clothes. I will thank the young man.” Her thanks included an Invitation to come In and have some tea; and. nothing loath, the young man went. When Doris appeared Mrs. Dale was already on friendly terms with her guest, whom she addressed as Mr. Martin. She invited him to dinner the next day. After he left she showed his card to her daughter, and the latter. glancing at It, exclaimed excitedly, if inelegantly: “Hully gee. mother! He’s one of the ‘Four Hundred’ a blooming millionaire; and you’ve invited him to corned beef and cabbage!” The next winter tne following marriage notice appeared in a society magazine: “Married—December 12, 1918. at the home of the bride's mother. Towson Martin and Doris Randal Dart!” And Sally Dewire, a young debutante, remarked to her chum : “Wonder where he ever picked up that little nobody ! But. then, he always was queer. We’ll never see her in society, if that’s what she’s aiming for. He hates It. He’s a regular clam.”