"Grab it!" yelled Russ.

"I'll get it!" exclaimed Laddie.

He made a rush to get hold of the box again before it should be washed too far out from sh.o.r.e, but he stumbled over a pile of sand and fell. He was not hurt, but when he got up the box was farther out than ever.

Daddy Bunker looked at the water between him and the box, and said:

"It's too deep to wade and spoil a pair of shoes. And, after all, maybe there is only a lot of old trash in the box."

"Oh, I thought maybe my doll was in it," sighed Violet.

"Can't you take your boat, Tom, and row out and get the box?" asked Cousin Ruth.

"Yes, I could do that," he said. "I will, too! The water is calm, though I can't tell how long it will stay so."

But before Cousin Tom could go back to the pier in the inlet, where the boat was tied, the box was washed quite a distance out from sh.o.r.e. Then the wind sprang up and the sea became rough, and it was decided that he had better not try it.

"Let the box go," said Daddy Bunker. "I guess there was nothing very much in it."

But the children thought differently. They stood looking out at the unopened box, now drifting to sea, and thought of the different things that _might_ be in it. Each one had an idea of some toy he or she liked best.

"Well, we waited too long about opening it," said Mr. Bunker. "We should have pulled the box farther up on the beach, Russ."

"That's right," said Cousin Tom. "The tides are getting high now, as fall is coming on, and the tides are always highest in the spring and the autumn. But maybe we can get the box back, after all."

"How?" asked Russ eagerly.

"Well, it may come ash.o.r.e again, farther up the beach," replied Cousin Tom.

"Then somebody else may find it and open it," Russ remarked.

"Yes, that may happen," said his father. "Well, we won't worry over it.

We didn't lose anything, for we never really had it."

But, just the same, the six little Bunkers could not help feeling sorry for themselves at not having seen what was in the box. They kept wondering and wondering what it could have been.

But a day or so later they had nearly forgotten about what might have been a treasure, for they found many other things to do.

One afternoon Margy and Mun Bun, who had been freshly washed and combed, went down to the wharf where Cousin Tom kept his boat.

"Don't get in it, though," warned their mother. "You were carried away in a boat once, and I don't want it to happen again. Keep away from the boats."

"We will!" promised Mun Bun and Margy.

When they reached the sh.o.r.e of the inlet Mun Bun said:

"Oh, Margy, look how low the water is! We can wade over to that little island!"

"Yes," agreed Margy, "we can. We can take off our shoes an' stockin's, an' carry 'em. Mother didn't tell us not to go wadin'."

And Mrs. Bunker had not, for she did not think the children would do this. So Margy and Mun Bun sat down on the wharf and made themselves barefooted. Then they started to wade across a shallow place in the inlet to where a little island of sand showed in the middle. And Margy and Mun Bun did not know what was going to happen to them, or they never would have done this.

CHAPTER XVII

MAROONED

"That's a nice little island over there," said Mun Bun to Margy as they waded along.

"Yes, it's a terrible nice little island," agreed his sister.

"An' we can camp out there an' have lots of fun."

"Oh, Mun Bun, catch me! I'm sinking down in a hole!"

"All right, I'll get you!" cried the little boy, and he grasped hold of his sister's arm. She had stepped into a little sandy hole, and the water came up half way to her knees. Of course that was not very deep, and when Margy saw she was not going to sink down very far she was no longer frightened.

"But I was scared till you grabbed hold of me," she said to Mun Bun. "Is it very deep any more?"

"No, it isn't deep at all," the little boy answered. "I can see down to the bottom all the way to the little island, and it isn't hardly over your toenails."

The tide was very low that day, and in some parts of the inlet there was no water at all, the sandy bottom showing quite dry in the sun.

As Cousin Tom had said, toward the fall of the year the tides are both extra high and extra low. Of course not at the same time, you understand, but twice a day. Sometimes the waters of the ocean came up into the inlet until they nearly flowed over the small pier. Then, some hours later, they would be very low. This was one of the low times for the tide, and it had made several small islands of sand in the middle of Clam River.

It was toward one of these islands that Margy and Mun Bun were wading.

They had seen it from the sh.o.r.e and it looked to be a good place to play. There was a big, almost round, spot of white sand, and all about it was shallow water, sparkling in the sun. The deepest water between the sh.o.r.e and the island was half way up to Margy's knees, and that, as I think you will admit, was not deep at all.

"We'll have some fun there," said Mun Bun.

"Maybe we can dig clams," went on the little girl.

Clam River was so called because so many soft and hard clams were dug there by the fishermen, who sold them to people who liked to make chowder of them.

There are two kinds of clams that are good to eat, the hard and the soft. One has a very hard sh.e.l.l, and this is the kind of clam you most often see in the stores.

But there is another sort of clam, with a thin sh.e.l.l, and out of one end of it the clam sticks a long thing, like a rubber tube. And when the clam digs a hole for himself down in the sand or the mud he thrusts this tube up to the top, and through it he sucks down things to eat.

The six little Bunkers had often seen the fishermen on Clam River dig down after these soft-sh.e.l.led fellows. The men used a short-handled hoe, and when they had dug away the sand there they found the clams in something that looked like little pockets, or burrows.

"Maybe we can dig clams," said Margy.

"We hasn't got any shovel or hoe," returned Mun Bun.

"Maybe we can dig with some big clam sh.e.l.ls, if we can find some," his sister said.