THE CLAMMER THE CLAMMER BY WILLIAM JOHN HOPKINS [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1906 COPYRIGHT 1906 BY WILLIAM JOHN HOPKINS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published March, 1906_ CONTENTS I THE CLAMMER 1 II A DAUGHTER OF THE RICH 83 III OLD GOODWIN’S WIFE 177 I THE CLAMMER THE CLAMMER Many of my friends--and probably all my neighbors--think me erratic and peculiar, I do not doubt. My friends remonstrate with me mildly, and I usually listen and accept and make no reply. For how can they know? And, they being what they are, how can I help them to a knowledge of things which must be born in a man? My neighbors do not remonstrate, for my neighbors are not of necessity my friends, and I am queer enough not to care to cultivate a man’s acquaintance merely because he lives next me. There is Goodwin the Rich, who has the palace on the hill, above my favorite clam beds. It is not likely that I shall ever know him, although his automobiles flash past my front gate, covering my hedge with dust, and enveloping my house in nauseous smells. I do not like automobiles. It is not to be imagined that Goodwin finds me peculiar, for he is probably unaware of my existence; but I have some humbler neighbors who stare at me and shake their heads. And I smile and pass on; for I know what I know, and it passeth their understanding. And all this shaking of heads, and all the protesting of my friends, is because I choose to go clamming. Some of my friends may, at first, have had the idea that my interest in clams was biological; for I received some training in that branch of science, and even taught it--or was supposed to teach it, with other branches--in a school. But I look back upon that school with horror, as, no doubt, my victims regard me, in retrospect. And my neighbors may, very naturally, have assumed that my interest in clams was gastronomic, which is, indeed, nearer the truth. But the evidence on that point was inconclusive. They were not asked to my feasts of steamed clams, if I had any, and they came to look upon me as simply queer. As an occupation for leisure hours, I commend the pursuit of the clam. Your true clammer is of another age, born after his time. He values not at all the improvements of this age. He reads by candle light or goes to bed at dark. He loves the wandering along the bare shores, hoe in hand, the wading through shallows, the mud pies he may make in the incidental pursuit of his prey, and the sights he sees. For the capture of the clams is less than the search for them, even as the sport of the true fisherman lies as much in fishing as in catching fish.