as 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.

[Illustration: Cutting down a tree]

"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.

[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."

[Illustration: Clay bowls]

"Of clay!" Thorn said, looking at pieces wonderingly. "I never saw a
bowl like that."

Periwinkle threw the oyster shells and pieces of broken bowl up on the
shell heap. "We throw all such thi