THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 
31 
the meeting-house is a kind of wind-mill, which runs one 
day in seven, turned either by the winds of doctrine or 
public opinion, or more rarely by the winds of Heaven, 
where another sort of grist is ground, of which, if it be 
not all bran or musty, if it be not plaster^ we trust to 
make bread of life. 
There were, here and there, heaps of shells in the 
fields, where clams had been opened for bait; for Orleans 
is famous for its shell-fish, especially clams, or, as our 
author says, “to speak more properly, worms.” The 
.shores are more fertile than the dry land. The in¬ 
habitants measure their crops, not only by bushels of 
corn, but by barrels of clams. A thousand barrels of 
clam-bait are counted as equal in value to six or eight 
thousand bushels of Indian corn, and once they were 
procured without more labor or expense, and the supply 
was thought to be inexhaustible. “For,” runs the his¬ 
tory, “ after a portion of the shore has been dug over, 
and almost all the clams taken up, at the end of two 
years, it is said, they are as plenty there as ever. It is 
even affirmed by many persons, that it is as necessary 
to stir the clam ground frequently as it is to hoe a field 
of potatoes ; because, if this labor is omitted, the clams 
will be crowded too closely together, and will be pre¬ 
vented from increasing in size.” But we were told that 
the small clam, Mya arenaria, was not so plenty here as 
formerly. Probably the clam-ground has been stirred 
too frequently, after all. Nevertheless, one man, who 
complained that they fed pigs with them and so made 
them scarce, told me that he dug and opened one hun¬ 
dred and twenty-six dollars’ worth in one winter, in 
Truro. 
We crossed a brook, not more than fourteen rods long, 
