THE CLAM. 189 



basket filled, the clam-pickers trudge back again 

 to the lodge and next to open him. He is not 

 a native to be astonished with an oyster-knife ; 

 once having shut his mouth, no force, saving that 

 of dashing his shell into atoms, will induce him to 



o 



open it. But the wily redskin, if she does not 

 know the old fable of the wind and the sun trying 

 their respective powers on the traveller, at least 

 adopts the same principle on the luckless clam ; 

 what knife and lever fail to do a genial warmth 

 accomplishes. The same plan the sun adopted 

 to make the traveller take off his coat (more 

 persuasive, perhaps, than pleasant) the Indian 

 squaw has recourse to in order to make the 

 clam open his shell. 



Hollowing out a ring in the ground, about 

 eight inches deep, they fill the circle with large 

 pebbles, made red-hot in the camp-fire near 

 by, and on these heated stones put the bivalve 

 martyr. The heat soon finds its way through 

 the shelly armour, the powerful ropes that hold 

 the doors together slacken, and, as his mansion 

 gradually grows 'too hot to hold him,' the door 

 opens a little for a taste of fresh air. Biding 

 her chance, armed with a long, smooth, sharp- 

 pointed stick, sits the squaw dusky, grim, and 

 dirty anxiously watching the clam's movements. 



