NOVEMBER 20: The Limpets
“A limpet,” said daddy, “is a little shellfish. They’re very, very small, perhaps a shade smaller than a snail, and they cling to the rocks which are their homes. There are always hundreds of them fastened on the big rocks on the coast by the sea. They live on seaweed and the salt water.
“When I was a boy we spent some time in a town by the sea. We used to play off a bank called ‘Greenbank’ because in the summer time this bank was always so very green. Below this bank there were countless big rocks. We could hide behind these rocks, and no one could see us. We loved that because it seemed so mysterious to hide like that. We could see the bank above us, and then, miles and miles, as far as we could see, was the ocean. The rocks were covered with seaweed, and they used to be very slippery. Sometimes we would play hide-and-seek back of these rocks.
“The rocks that were half in the water would be covered with the limpets. One big rock had great numbers of them on it, and we always called the rock ‘Limpet Rock.’
“One Saturday about six of us had taken a big basketful of lunch and had gone down to Greenbank to spend the day. There had been a terrific storm the night before. We looked for our Limpet Rock the first thing, but we saw not a sign of a limpet. How funny, we thought; that surely is the rock! What could have become of the limpets? They were quite used to storms, and surely they couldn’t have been hurt by the storm of the night before! Suddenly we spied them.
“There they all were, looking very unhappy and clinging to little pebbles and rocks in the low water. Before the day was over, though, the limpets had attached themselves to another big rock. So we called this rock the ‘New Limpet Rock.’ Once the limpets had fastened themselves to the new rock, they were just as happy as before, for they can change homes more easily than any other creatures and be happy.
“So I think we should admire the limpets because they are so brave and cheerful when they are driven from one home and with practically no fuss they set about and get a new home right away.”