Chapter XII: At the Home of the Shell Mound People

Dogs barked and ran up and down the shore among the people. The children ran along to their home. They were not afraid of the dogs, but petted them. And the dogs jumped about the children and played with them and were glad to see them.

The people of the shell mounds did not look just like the cave people. They were shorter and had rounder heads. But their eyebrows hung over their eyes, as the cave people's did. And they dressed in skins.

Their houses were made of branches of trees and stones and dirt. They were set high up on shore where the waves could not reach them.

Thorn walked about with the children and saw a great pile of shells. It lay far along the shore, and was higher than a man, and very wide.

"What are you going to do with all these shells?" he asked Periwinkle.

"Do with them?" laughed Periwinkle. "Why, nothing. We threw them away. They show what good things we have had to eat, do they not, Foam?"

Foam was a girl with white teeth.

"Yes," said Foam, laughing. "They are shells of oysters and clams and periwinkles that we have eaten."

"Um-m! what lots of them you have eaten!" said Thorn, looking over the big pile.

"Yes," said Periwinkle, with a laugh, "we live on them."

"But you see," Foam went on, "our people have lived here for a long time--longer than my grandfather can remember. And the shell mounds have been growing all that time. There are many other shell heaps all along this shore, where more of our people live."

Thorn looked down to the water's edge and saw men pulling hollow logs down to the shore.

"They are going fishing in the dug-outs," said Periwinkle. "Come on, we will go with them."

The boys ran down to the shore and jumped into a boat that the men had pushed out into the water. Then the men also jumped in, and paddled out with sticks.

"Why do you call these dug-outs?" asked Thorn, rubbing his hand along the side of the boat.

"Because they are dug-outs," laughed Periwinkle. "You will see them made some day."

"Well, why do they not turn over?" Thorn asked next.

"Because they are flat on the bottom."

The dug-outs kept together and went a little way out to sea. One man had a bone spear. He saw a fish lying on the bottom and speared it.

"Oh, it is a flounder," said Periwinkle. "See, it is white on one side. It lies on that side. It is gray on the top side, and both the eyes are there."

Other men had long strings and bone hooks. They caught cod and herring.

When the boats were well filled with fish, the men began to paddle home. But before they reached the shore, the sky turned gray, and the sea grew rough, for the wind blew hard.

"This is nothing," said Periwinkle, laughing, as he saw the whites of Thorn's eyes. "You should see it sometimes. The waves are as high as a hill! Then we do not go fishing, and we live on foxes or rabbits or bears or ducks, or anything that we can kill. When we get nothing by hunting, we kill the dogs."

"Do the big waves ever turn the dug-outs over?" Thorn asked, with white lips.

"Yes, but we all swim."

When the boats reached shore, the women stood waiting. They were glad when they saw the fish, and quickly took them out. Then they began to cook them.

One woman laid her fish on hot coals to cook. Another put big leaves around hers and buried them in the ashes. One cooked hers in still another way. She went to a hole in the ground and lined it with a skin. She poured water into the hole and then put in hot stones until the water grew hot. Then she put in her fish.

When the fish were cooked, the women cut big pieces and gave them to their families. The people took the fish in their hands and sat down on the sand and ate.

"Maybe you would like salt on your fish," said Foam to Thorn.

She took a little in her fingers and put it on his fish.

"That makes it taste better. Where do you get salt?"

"We burn sea-weed and get it."

When all the fish had been eaten, Periwinkle called, "They are going to hack down a tree. Come on, if you want to see it."

As the boys ran through the woods, Thorn saw nothing but fir trees.

"Have you no trees but firs?" he asked.

"No, only firs--firs, little and big, as far as you can see."

The boys followed the sounds that rang through the woods. Soon they saw men busy about a tree. One man was hacking a ring around it near the ground. When that was done, he hacked another ring above the first. His stone ax did not cut deep. And the wood between the two rings stayed there; it did not fly off in chips. So both men began to beat the wood between the rings with the flat side of their axes. Around and around the tree they went, and beat the chips to get them loose. Then, with a piece of antler, they worked under the chips until they came off. After that they hacked again in the rings, and again beat the wood between, and worked off the chips.

"Oh, come and play in the sand," at last cried Periwinkle. "They will be days hacking down that tree."

The boys ran back to the shore and lay down in the warm sand. They saw the purple sea, and the sea birds flying, and heard the waves breaking on the beach.