Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1919-08-21
Clans
BY DORA NOLAN
It, 1919, by the Mcclure News
paper Syndicate.)

'By golly!" suddenly exclaimed Dor
is from where she stood by the win
dow, eff that job doesn't end soon
there won't be clam left in the
covei"
"Doris !" came the reproachful voice
of her mother, please don't use such
unladylike words"
"Find me one as expressive and
won't" responded the irrepressible
Doris. 'I'm dying for some clans, and
those laborers laying the new gas
pipes are just digging them all up be-
fore 1 get a look-in."
"But they are busy putting in the
pipes, aren't they, dear?" mildly quer-
fed Doris mother. "Hcw can they dig
clans at the same timer?
ooh, they're just stalling on the job,
mother, waiting for some more pipe.
The little foreman told me so yester-
day. Meanwhile they're just digging
up all the CLANS"
Doris" the mother again started to
demonstrate with her lively young
daughter, but as often happened, that
same daughter took the words from
her mouth. II 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
seen one worth speaking to since we
came-and he was claiming, too.
Came from over across the cove some
where Got a lot, too. If he'd had
any decency he'd have offered me
some. Goodness knows limited broad
ly enough"
The little mother remarked in re-
signed tone: "He thought you were
a child, probably, with your bobbed
hair and that short red skirt.
81 should worry what he thought;
he's some country clam himself"
Doris replied, laughingly. "All the
same, l wish my boots would arrive.
It was so stupid of us to forget them"
Then speculatively: "That waters too
cold to go into barelegged."
At should say So" the mother made
haste to reply. Doris, don't you
think of such thing"
mo, 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 daugh-
ter 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
months vacation" as Doris herself eX-
pressed 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 girls and
not insist on bobbing her hair with
the ridiculous excuse that it saved
time.
And then those awful understand
boots-that she insisted ON wearing out
fishing and claiming! But Mrs. Dart
preferred not to think about them.
Doris was wizard at finding a way
out of a dilemma. Probably that was
why she succeeded so we'll in business.
The only way out of her present one,
she decided, was over bridge farther
up the cove.
This bridge had been started with
flourish by some bunko amusement
company and finished in a fizzle. 1t
lacked five feet of reaching the fiat is
land 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
having arrived and low tide coincid-
ing with her mothers rest hour, Doris
got into the obnoxious Knockers and,
armed with shOrt-handled hoe and q
bag, walked over the unfinished bridge,
took a flying downward leap-and
there she was!
the CLANS were pIenC11u1. In1S was
a place the laborers had not hit upon
Doris dug and dug, and the tide crept
up and up. Clam digging is a time
consuming work; so when the bag was
nearly filled the strenuous young lady
was relieved to find by glance at her
watch that it was not quite time for
her mothers nap to be over. But at
the bridge she found, somewhat to her
dismay, ten feet of water, shallow to
be sure, but growing deeper every mo-
ment between the low shore and the
much higher end of the bridge.
"Time and tide" quoted Doris, rue
fully, as she started bravely through
1t. The water was knee deep when
she managed to throw the bag up onto
the bridge; but getting herself up was
quite 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 fu-
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