The Village Convict | Page 6

was feeding out that oyster to me, what they would have thought!"
Eph laughed too; and, surely enough, just then a stout, light-haired, rather plain-looking young woman came up to the south window and leaned in. She had on a sun-bonnet, which had not prevented her from securing a few choice freckles. She had been working with a trowel in her flower-garden.
"What's the matter?" she said, nodding easily to Eph. "What do you two always find to laugh about?"
"Ephraim was feeding me with spoon-meat," said Aunt Lyddy, pointing to the basket, which looked like a basket of anthracite coal.
"It looks like spoon-meat!" said Susan, and then she laughed too. "I 'll roast some of them for supper," she added,--"a new way that I know."
Eph was not invited to stay to supper, but he stayed, none the less: that was always understood.
"Well, well, well!" said Joshua, coming to the door-step, and washing his hands and arms just outside, in a tin basin. "I thought I see you set down a parcel of oysters--but there was sea-weed over 'em, and I don' know's I could have said they was oysters; but then, if the square question had been put to me, 'Mr. Carr, be them oysters or be they not?' I s'pose I should have said they was; still, if they 'd asked me how I knew--"
"Come, come, father!" said Aunt Lyddy, "do give poor Ephraim a little peace. Why don't you just say you thought they were oysters, and done with it?"
"Say I thought they was?" he replied, innocently. "I knew well enough they was--that is--knew? No, I did n't know, but--"
Aunt Lyddy, with an air of mock resignation, gave up, while Joshua endeavored to fix, to a hair, the exact extent of his knowledge.
Eph smiled; but he remembered what would have made him pardon, a thousand times over, the old man's garrulousness. He remembered who alone had never failed, once a year, to visit a certain prisoner, at the cost of a long and tiresome journey, and who had written to that homesick prisoner kind and cheering letters, and had sent him baskets of simple dainties for holidays.
Susan bustled about, and made a fire of crackling sticks, and began to roast the oysters in a way that made a most savory smell. She set the table, and then sat down at the melodeon, while she was waiting, and sang a hymn; for she was of a musical turn, and was one of the choir. Then she jumped up and took out the steaming oysters, and they all sat down.
"Well, well, well!" said her father; "these be good! I did n't s'pose you hed any very good oysters in your bed, Ephraim. But there, now--I don't s'pose I ought to have said that; that was n't very polite; but what I meant was, I did n't s'pose you hed any that was real good--though I don' know but I 've said about the same thing, now. Well, any way, these be splendid; they 're full as good as those co-hogs we had t'other night."
"Quahaugs!" said Susan. "The idea of comparing these oysters with quahaugs!"
"Well, well! that's so!" said her father. "I did n't say right, did I, when I said that! Of course, there ain't no comparison--that is--no comparison? Why, of course, they is a comparison between everything,--but then, cohogs don't really compare with oysters! That's true!"
And then he paused to eat a few.
He was silent so long at this occupation that they all laughed.
"Well, well!" he said, laying down his fork, and smiling innocently; "what be you all laughin' at? Not but what I allers like to hev folks laugh--but then, I did n't see nothin' to laugh at. Still, perhaps they was suthin' to laugh at that I didn't see; sometimes one man 'll be lookin' down into his plate, all taken up with his victuals, and others, that's lookin' around the room, may see the kittens frolickin', or some such thing. 'T ain't the fust time I 've known all hands to laugh all to once-t, when I didn't see nothin'."
Susan helped him again, and secured another brief respite.
"Ephraim," said he, after a while, "you ain't skilled to cook oysters like this, I don't believe. You ought to git married! I was sayin' to Susan t'other day--well, now, mother, hev I said anything out o' the way? Well, I don't s'pose 't was just my place to have said anything about gitt'n' married, to Ephraim, seein's--"
"Come, come, father," said Aunt Lyddy, "that'll do, now. You must let Ephraim alone, and not joke him about such things."
Meanwhile Susan had hastily gone into the pantry to look for a pie, which she seemed unable at once to find.
"Pie got adrift?" called out Joshua. "Seems to me you don't hook on to