[Illustration: A flounder]
CHAPTER XIII
THORN LEARNS TO SWIM
After a little the boys jumped up and ran into the water to play with
the other children.
[Illustration: Seaweed]
A big green wave came rolling in, and the children quickly took hold of
hands. They jumped up as the wave broke over them. It knocked some of
them down and stood Clam on his head. Somebody caught his feet, and
the others all laughed. He came up angry and choking, when another
wave caught him and rolled him over again. After that the boys came
crowding around Thorn, waving their arms.
"You must learn to swim," they cried. "It is easy. Make your arms go
this way and your feet this way"; and they showed him how.
Thorn tried it and went straight to the bottom. The boys shouted.
"Here is a log," they said. "Put your arms over that. It will keep
you up till you learn."
[Illustration: Thorn learns to swim]
Thorn kept on trying, and in a few days he could swim a little.
"You do very well," said Foam.
The next day, when the tide was out, the boys waded in and picked up
periwinkles and oysters and clams, and threw them up on the beach.
When Periwinkle began to open his oysters, he took a brown bowl to put
them in. Once, in breaking a shell, his stone knife struck the bowl
and broke it.
"Too bad," he said. "Mother liked that bowl. She made it herself, of
clay, and dried it by the fire.
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