Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/100

102 was in New York, I would stop awhile, as I had numerous friends there, and pass the time off as pleasantly as possible—which I did going to the operas, pic-nics, and clam-bakes. I suppose some of my readers would like to know what a clam-bake is. I will tell you.

I was invited to a very beautiful place called Weehawken; it was the prettiest place I ever saw in the woods for any amusement of the kind. When we arrived at Weehawken, we found a handsome house fitted up for the season; in front was a platform about one hundred feet square, with a railing round it and seats; outside this railing was a place erected for a full band of music. All commenced dancing the instant they arrived; some even before they got their things off. While I, with some others who did not dance, went to see the preparations for cooking the clams.

I was very much pleased, as it was something I had never seen before. First, they put on the ground thirty or forty logs of wood, with plenty of kindling; when these logs were burning, they put on a cart load of large stones; when these became red hot, they covered them with sea-weed. They then took fish of all kinds that could be baked sweet, and Irish potatoes, corn in the ear; rolled them all up in separate pieces of paper, laid them on the sea weed; then they made another row of sea-weed, on which about three barrels of clams were put; then another covering of sea-weed; and so on, till there was a pile four or five feet high, and all was in a short time beautifully baked. In the meantime there was quite a circle of boards erected round this bed of clams, where the people stood around and received from those inside