Now, when clams are put where it is dark and cool and quiet, they open their shells. If you should go softly up, and put a straw in one of their mouths, it would clasp its shells together so tightly, that you could not get them open.
The cellar was under my mother's bed-room; and in the night she heard a great noise, like something bumping and slamming, down below. Being a brave woman, she lighted a candle, and went down stairs; and what do you think she found? I will tell you; for I am sure you would never guess.
When the house came to be still with the night-stillness, and every one was in bed, an old rat had come out of his hole, and gone foraging around for his supper. As he walked majestically along, swinging his long tail after him, it happened to switch into a clam's opened shell, when, presto change! the clam was no longer only a clam: it was a rat-trap.

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