ays is full o' work. The winter's the time for readin'. I got
hold o' a book last winter that was wuth a great deal o' time, and got
it. I never liked a book better. That was Rollin's 'Ancient History.'"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Barclay. "So you enjoyed that?"

"Ever read it?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you enjoy it?"

"I believe I like Modern history better."

"I've read some o' that too," said he meditatively. "It ain't so
different. 'Seems to me, folks is allays pretty much alike; only we
call things by different names. Alexander the Great, now,--he warn't
much different from Napoleon Buonaparte."

"Wasn't he a better man?" inquired Mr. Lenox, putting his head out at
the door.

"Wall, I don' know; it's difficult, you know, to judge of folk's
insides; but I don't make much count of a man that drinks himself to
death at thirty."

"Haven't you any drinking in Shampuashuh?"

"Wall, there ain't much; and what there is, is done in the dark, like.
You won't find no rum-shops open."

"Indeed! How long has the town been so distinguished?"

"I guess it's five year. I _know_ it is; for it was just afore we put
in our last President. Then we voted liquor shouldn't be president in
Shampuashuh."

"Do you get along any better for it?"

"Wall"--slowly--"I should say we did. There ain't no quarrellin', nor
fightin', nor anybody took up for the jail, nor no one livin' in the
poorhouse--'thout it's some tramp on his way to some place where there
_is_ liquor. An' _he_ don't want to stay."

"What are those two figures yonder among the grass?" Mrs. Lenox now
asked; she also having come out of the house in search of objects of
interest, the interior offering none.

"Them?" said Mr. Sears. "Them's Lois and her aunt. Their baskets is
gettin' heavy, too. I'll make the fire for ye, Miss Charity," he cried,
lifting his voice; and therewith disappeared.

"What are they doing?" Mrs. Lenox asked, in a lower tone.

"Digging clams," Mrs. Barclay informed her.

"Digging clams! How do they dig them?"

"With a hoe, I believe."

"I ought to go and offer my services," said the gentleman, rising.

"Do not think of it," said Mrs. Barclay. "You could not go without
plunging into wet, soft mud; the clams are found only there, I believe."

"How do _they_ go?"

"Barefoot-dressed for it."

"_Un_dressed for it," said Mrs. Lenox. "Barefoot in the mud! Could you
have conceived it!"

"They say the mud is warm," Mrs. Barclay returned, keeping back a