Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 70

Dempster woke up and hauled in the lines. We had thirty crabs floundering in the hold, all fighting like imps of darkness.

"We'll have them for dinner," says Dempster, ferociously, "they won't be so lively half an hour from now."

He was right, it took us just fifteen minutes to sail back to that white house with the long stoop. Fifteen minutes after that, every crab was in water so hot that they gave up clawing and began to turn furiously red.

Half an hour after we sat around a long table out under the trees, with a great platter of those scrawny creatures lying with their red sh.e.l.ls uppermost, a good deal easier to catch than they had been, I can tell you.

Mr. Burke was busy as could be, telling me how to put in my knife under the red sh.e.l.l, so as to lay the sweet white flesh open.

I say nothing, but it seemed to me there was one jealous female around those premises, and that female certainly was not me.

The meat of those creatures is just delicious--what there is of it.

Take it altogether, sisters, it seems to me that catching and eating crabs is an amus.e.m.e.nt which promises better than bathing.

If I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Burke held my hand longer than was quite necessary when he said good-night after we reached the hotel. I saw E. E. looking at us sideways, and I let it rest--rest lovingly in his clasp long enough to wring her heart. What right has she to have any feeling about it, I should like to know? Isn't she married?

CHAPTER XCIV.

EXTRA POLITENESS.

Dear sisters:--Life is a pleasant thing to have when its chariot-wheels revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E.

E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibited a desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society than that of her own lawful husband is--well, not to speak harshly, an example that some people may follow, but I won't.

This morning, as we sat on the long stoop of the hotel, gazing out on the broad expanse of the boundless ocean, Mr. Burke came gently to my side, and spoke:

"Miss Frost."

My heart beat; my eyelids dropped, but I lifted them, in shy innocence, to his face, inquiringly, wistfully. What would he say next?

"Miss Frost, have you ever seen a clam-bake?"

I reflected a moment. Were clam-bakes indigenous to our Vermont soil?

Were they a product of the mountains, or a spontaneous growth of the river vales?

"I do not think I have ever seen them growing in Vermont," says I, at last; "yet there are few roots or vegetables, wild or tame, that I don't know something about. There is wake-robin, on the mountains, with its spokes of red berries; and snake-root, and adder's-tongue; but I don't remember clam-bakes among them, and I know they are not cultivated in our parts as garden-sas, I beg pardon, as vegetables."

Mr. Burke smiled out loud, and his black mustache curled down on each side of his lips delightfully.

"I fancy you have never seen anything of the kind in Vermont. Clam-bakes are only found at the sea-side--princ.i.p.ally around Rhode Island. I don't think they prevail much in the mountains, as yet."

"You don't say so!" says I. "Then they are a salt-water plant?"

"Princ.i.p.ally found in the sand and mud."

"That don't seem to me very remarkable," says I; "most vegetables are found in one or the other. Watermelons, for instance, grow best in a bare sand-bank: perhaps your new-fangled vegetable is of that species?"

Again his black mustache gave a lovely curl, and his black eyes looked into mine so tenderly, as if something I had said tickled him almost to death.

"You _are_ an original creature," said he.

I put one hand on my heart, and bowed.

"People about Sprucehill, especially the Society of Infinite Progress, have done me the honor to think so," says I.

"But about the clam-bake--if you like it, we must start for Pleasure Bay at once," says Mr. Burke.

"Do they grow down there?" says I.

"Not as a general thing, but we shall make out to get one up, with a little trouble."

"Do they grow so deep?" says I.

"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the carriage is waiting."

To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever grew.

"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her window-blinds.

I got up and shook out my dress.

"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to invite us, so don't keep him waiting."

I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that n.o.ble-looking man, and he must have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.

I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great b.u.t.tons and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously, and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to tantalize a minister.

Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was national as well as individual.

E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.

If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married woman.

We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr.

Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion only, insisted on it that I should get in first--which would have brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be persuaded into pus.h.i.+ng myself before a married woman, and at last she got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth.

I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away we went.

CHAPTER XCV.

THE CLAM-BAKE.